getting desired sub string from string

Question

How do I get substring from string which start with s and end with /s.

$text can be in following formats

 $text = "LowsABC/s";
 $text = "sABC/sLow";
 $text = "ABC";

how can I get ABC, sometime it may happen that $text does not contain s and /s just only ABC, Still I want to get the ABC.

Get everything between s and /s BUT if they are both missing get everything? do they only appear once? — Waygood
– Waygood, Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 12:20
@Waygood: Either both tags will be present or both will be absent. No other case — Daric
– Daric, Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 12:52
just needed clarifying because the straight preg_match answer would cover none, one or both. So its not correct for what you want. You need the pre-checking of @some-non-descript-user — Waygood
– Waygood, Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 13:04

Igor Chubin · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-08 12:31:01Z

1

The regular expression:

s(.*)/s

Or when you want to get a string of minimal length:

s(.*?)/s

And apply this res you can using preg_match:

preg_match( '@s(.*)/s@', $text, $match );
var_dump( $match );

And now you must check, if something was found or not, and if not, then the result must be set to the entire string:

if (not $match) {
   $match = $text;
}

Example of usage:

$ cat 1.php 
<?
$text = "LowsABC/s";
preg_match( '@s(.*)/s@', $text, $match );
var_dump( $match );
?>

$ php 1.php
array(2) {
  [0]=>
  string(6) "sABC/s"
  [1]=>
  string(3) "ABC"
}

edited Aug 8, 2012 at 12:31

answered Aug 8, 2012 at 12:20

Igor Chubin

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6 Comments

Waygood Over a year ago

And if they dont contain s and /s?

Daric Over a year ago

Getting Warning: preg_match(): Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash

Daric Over a year ago

after using your updated code now I get this preg_match(): Internal pcre_fullinfo() error -3

Igor Chubin Over a year ago

@Waygood: you must check, if nothing was found, then use the entire string. That is better than make something like s?(.*?)(?:/s)?

Daric Over a year ago

Warning is removed now but the final output still contain s and /s can you help on this please

|

some-non-descript-user · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-08 12:36:24Z

1

Might be trivial, but what about just using something like this (Regexs aren't always worth the trouble ;) ):

$text = (strpos($text,'s') !== false and strpos($text,'/s') !== false) ? preg_replace('/^.*s(.+)\/s.*$/','$1',$text) : $text;

answered Aug 8, 2012 at 12:36

some-non-descript-user

6161 gold badge14 silver badges25 bronze badges

1 Comment

Waygood Over a year ago

+1 as this covers the fact that none or both TAGS need to be present.

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