PHP preg_replace() error with regular expression

Question

I have returned a webpage through curl_exec into a string. I am trying to then replace all hyperlinks with the string javascript:void().

The regex expression that I have tested at http://regexhero.net/tester/ is

(?<=href=("|'))[^"']+(?=("|'))

This works perfectly. When I try and use it in PHP with preg_replace(), I get the error : Unknown mofifier '['

Code snippet is

$pattern = "(?<=href=(".'"'."|'))[^".'"'."']+(?=(".'"'."|'))";
$replacement = "javascript:void();";
$result = preg_replace($pattern,$replacement,$result) ;

I also tried just escaping the string like

$pattern = "(?<=href=(\"|'))[^\"']+(?=(\"|'))";

I am scripting in a Win environment, but it is to go on LAMP.

Thanks for your input

Is your regex too complicated? Can't you do href=["'](\s*?)['"] — bozdoz
– bozdoz, Commented Dec 4, 2012 at 2:08

Aust · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-04 02:05:10Z

1

You need to add delimiters to your pattern. In JavaScript these are the / before and after the pattern. You can use the same for PHP, but I like using ~ instead.

$pattern = "~(?<=href=(".'"'."|'))[^".'"'."']+(?=(".'"'."|'))~";

answered Dec 4, 2012 at 2:05

Aust

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