PHP Regex match file or directory

Question

Given a URL path, I am attempting to create a regular expression to match if the path points to a directory, and to not match if it points to file extensions .php, .js, .html, .htm, etc.

Match:

/www/site/path/ny/

Match:

/www/news/state.208/ii

Do not match:

/www/news/index.php

Do not match:

/www/site/fr/post.py

Here is my regex that I've been working with:

^([a-zA-Z0-9/_\-]*[^/])$

This regex does what I want, but it isn't precise enough. It assumes it is a path to a file and stops matching whenever it comes across a ".", but I need to consider the possibility that the directory name contains a ".", like in the example above.

I also tried using negative look behinds with no luck:

^(.(?!\.php)|(?!\.htm?l)|(?!\.js))$

you haven't specified what you're using this for, but PHP has lots of built in functions in this area -- php's file_exists(), is_dir(), pathinfo(), basename(), and other functions may be more appropriate than complex regex here. — SDC
– SDC, Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 12:46

Julien May · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-08 21:41:34Z

2

try this tiny one:

^.*/[^\.]*$

edit:

^.*/((?!\.js|\.php|\.html).)*$

replace or extend with the extensions you want to ignore.

edited Dec 8, 2012 at 21:41

answered Dec 7, 2012 at 12:38

Julien May

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2 Comments

Zack Over a year ago

This almost works, except it wouldn't match the directory: "/www/ww.news4".

Julien May Over a year ago

@deraad: see edit then. as you tell you want "file extensions" to be ignored, the only way to achieve it with a regex is to define a list of unwanted extensions.

Aleph · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-07 12:40:17Z

2

Since you're using PHP, you might want to try pathinfo instead:

$parts = pathinfo('/www/site/path/file.php');

In this case $parts['extension'] will exist, in other cases it will not.

edited Dec 7, 2012 at 12:40

answered Dec 7, 2012 at 12:38

Aleph

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3 Comments

Zack Over a year ago

Good idea, except I need this to be a regex for a variety of reasons

SDC Over a year ago

@deraad - it might help you with getting helpful answers if you explain those 'variety of reasons'. From what you've said so far, regex doesn't sound like the appropriate solution.

Zack Over a year ago

@SDC I need it in regex form because it will go not only in a PHP function, but in an htaccess file as well. If I were only using this in my PHP script, I would use the PHP functions like pathinfo()

Peter Adrian · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-07 13:25:03Z

1

To simplify your question, you are looking for a string starting with /, and the last segment doesn't have a extension:

[\/]{0,1}.*\/[^\.]*.{1}$

Edit:

This works for all your examples:

^(.*\/){0,1}[^\.]*.{1}$

edited Dec 7, 2012 at 13:25

answered Dec 7, 2012 at 12:38

Peter Adrian

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2 Comments

Zack Over a year ago

It doesn't necessarily HAVE to start with a '/'. It may or may not. To simplify it should look for strings containing: a-zA-Z0-9/_\.- and does not end in a file extension.

Zack Over a year ago

Thanks for editing that, but it appears to still be matching "www/fr/this.php", I'm trying to get it to not match when there is a file extension at the end.

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