Using regex to check on a specific pattern in PHP

Question

I am trying to create the following regular expression in PHP to match the following:

[2013-01-01 12:34:12.123] [USERNAME] something

I am able to get part of the first part but I am new to regex in php, any help is appreciated.

Important note: any space above could be one space or more.

(This is what I got so far)

/^[\[][0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}]/

I am using this tool to test that my regex match: http://www.pagecolumn.com/tool/pregtest.htm (just want to confirm that it is an okay tool).

Update: to clerify more, something could be any amount of text, white spaces above could be any amount of white spaces and USERNAME could be any amount of text as well.

Explosion Pills · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-29 04:30:25Z

1

\[\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}\s+[\d:.]+\]\s+\[\w+\]\s+something

http://rubular.com/r/BPGvFN4kwi

You're not specific about your rules. For example the very first part probably needs to be a date, but the regex can match 13 for the month. Is that okay? Also what makes a valid "USERNAME" or "something?"

answered Mar 29, 2013 at 4:30

Explosion Pills

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5 Comments

user220755 Over a year ago

Apologize for not being specific. Something can be any text (And any amount of text). Also, the first is actually a date but it is okay if it doesn't match exactly up to 12. Username could also be anything

Explosion Pills Over a year ago

@user220755 I don't know if I'd trust that website; I just wrote a php script where it worked. If USERNAME can be "anything," you may want to change \w+ to .*? between the second set of braces

user220755 Over a year ago

One last question, what if I wanted instead of something I want a full text of anything (like: "something and something else ()[]!?") or something like that. I tried .*? but that did not work, any help is appreciated :)

user220755 Over a year ago

I am trying to use this: /[\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}\s+[\d:.]+]\s+[(\w+)]\s+(.*?)/

Explosion Pills Over a year ago

@user220755 You need to escape the [ and ] that are not part of character classes

Mihail H. · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-29 07:17:12Z

1

/^\[([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\s+([0-9]+:[0-9]+:[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)+\]\s+\[([^\]]+)\]\s+(.+)/

With comments:

/^
\[ # "[" is a special char and should be escape
    ([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}) # Use brackets for group and capture (see $matches in php function)
    \s+ # One or move space chars (space, tab, etc.)
    ([0-9]+:[0-9]+:[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)+ # "(?: )" is a group without capturing
\]
\s+
\[([^\]]+)\] # "[^\]]+" - one or more any char except "]"
\s+
(.+) # One or more any char
/x

P.S.: you can use "\d" instead of "[0-9]" and (in this case; for flexibility) you can use "+" ("one or more char" specifier) instead of "{4}" or "{2}".

P.P.S.: http://www.pagecolumn.com/tool/pregtest.htm contains bug (incorrect handles backslash), try another service.

edited Mar 29, 2013 at 7:17

answered Mar 29, 2013 at 5:03

Mihail H.

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Comments

Sergiu Toarca · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-29 05:23:34Z

0

Since your format has delimiters (the []s), you don't need the checks that the other answers provide. Instead you can simply use

\[([^\]]*)\]\s+\[([^\]]*)\]\s+(.*)

which breaks down to

\[([^\]]*)\] // Capture all non-] chars within [ and ]; this is the date
\s+ // some space
\[([^\]]*)\] // Capture all non-] chars within [ and ] again; this is USERNAME
\s+ // some space
(.*) // Capture all the text after; this is something

You can walk through this regex step-by-step using Debuggex.

edited Mar 29, 2013 at 5:23

answered Mar 29, 2013 at 5:16

Sergiu Toarca

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