PHP (URL) matching regex issue

Question

I'm looking for a regex to match a given URL which contains something like
"/unknownnumber/knownstring1-unknownstring.html"
in order to redirect it with PHP to other new url like
"/unknownnumber/knownstring2-unknownstring"
to keep Google indexed URLs active.

I have used next statement, but $do_match returns 0, so I'm doing something wrong...

Could someone help me with my regular expression?

$myURL = "/unknownnumber/knownstring1-unknownstring.html";
$do_match = preg_match('~"([0-9]+)/knownstring1-(.*?)$.html"~', $myURL, $matches);

So echo '<pre>';print_r($matches);echo'</pre>';exit; is empty? — Fidi
– Fidi, Commented Dec 28, 2012 at 7:47

codaddict · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-28 07:48:39Z

2

A $ is a end of line marker. You need to place it at the end of the regex and also to mean a literal . you need to escape it.

preg_match('~"([0-9]+)/knownstring1-(.*?)\.html"$~'....

answered Dec 28, 2012 at 7:48

codaddict

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1 Comment

jprog Over a year ago

Thanks for that advice, but it still doesn't return any matches... I've seen maybe my regex should be like $do_match = preg_match('~"/([0-9]+)/knownstring1-(.*?)$.html"~', $myURL, $matches); with the extra slash before the number, but it still doesn't work...

Aleksandr Makov · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-28 10:10:35Z

2

Dot (.), dash (-) are meta characters that have special meaning.

If 'unknownumber' is a numeric part of your string, then regexp pattern would looke like this:

$do_match = preg_match('/\/(\d+)\/knownstring1\-([^\.]+)\.html/', $input, $matches);

edited Dec 28, 2012 at 10:10

answered Dec 28, 2012 at 7:48

Aleksandr Makov

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2 Comments

jprog Over a year ago

I've joint both answers (as yours gave me next message: Warning: preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash), so i used "$do_match = preg_match('~"\/(\d+)\/knownstring1\-([^\.]+)\.html/"$~', $myURL, $matches);" but... it still doesn't return any match... sorry..

Aleksandr Makov Over a year ago

Sorry, was in rush. I've fixed the pattern. It had missing preceding delimiter - forward slash in particular case. However, since you're using tildes as delimiter, the adopted pattern would look like this:$do_match = preg_match('~\/(\d+)\/knownstring1\-([^\.]+)\.html~', $input, $matches);

David Harris · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-28 08:05:42Z

1

$myURL = "/unknownnumber/knownstring1-unknownstring.html";
if(preg_match('#"/(\d+)/knownstring1-(.*)\.html"#', $myURL, $matches))
    var_dump($matches);

outputs:

php > $exp = '#"/(\d+)/knownstring1-(.*)\.html"#';
php > $str = '"/23421/knownstring1-unknownstring.html"';
php > if(preg_match($exp, $str, $matches)) var_dump($matches); else echo 'nope' .     PHP_EOL;
array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(40) ""/23421/knownstring1-unknownstring.html""
  [1]=>
  string(5) "23421"
  [2]=>
  string(13) "unknownstring"
}
php >

edited Dec 28, 2012 at 8:05

answered Dec 28, 2012 at 8:00

David Harris

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Comments

PhearOfRayne · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-28 08:15:46Z

0

Give this a try:

$myURL = "/123/knownstring1-unknownstring.html";
$do_matches = preg_match('#\/(\d+)\/(.*)\-(.*)\.html#', $myURL, $matches);
print_r($matches);

print_r output:

Array
(
    [0] => /123/knownstring1-unknownstring.html
    [1] => 123
    [2] => knownstring1
    [3] => unknownstring
)

answered Dec 28, 2012 at 8:15

PhearOfRayne

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