Regex to delete items from CSS file

Question

I know people often get told off here for using regexes to fiddle with HTML which I understand but I think in this case I have a valid use for it to alter a CSS file. Unfortunately I am hopeless at writing them myself.

I'm writing a script (PHP) that needs to dynamically add/remove items in a CSS file. As an example the CSS file may have the following declaration:

.cat-item-4 {
    background: #ff0fcd;
}

Presumably a regex is possible to remove this whole declaration? It may contain other things asides from "background" so would need to spot the .cat-item-4 class and then remove both that and everything between and including the parentheses. The whole lot basically.

Any help appreciated.

CSS != HTML... Using Regexes for this isn't so bad... but I wonder if you really need to do it in the first place. — Andrew Barber
– Andrew Barber, Commented Feb 17, 2012 at 23:23
Yea I realise they're different, I was just trying to avoid the usual wrath that ensues when asking about regexes here! The situation is a bit complex and probably not worth fully explaining, essentially it's for a wordpress plugin that will allow me to assign a hex colour to a category via the admin so the plugin needs to control the display of these classes. I could do it with ugly inline CSS but I'm trying to keep this as neat as possible! — artparks
– artparks, Commented Feb 17, 2012 at 23:28
No problem. As long as you aren't changing it "on the fly" frequently, it's not a big deal,AFAIC — Andrew Barber
– Andrew Barber, Commented Feb 17, 2012 at 23:31

hexparrot · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-17 23:28:54Z

1

You can use a regex find/replace with:

$re = "#\.\bcat-item-4\b.+?\}#s";

Coupled with the modifier PCRE_DOTALL (s), this will find all classes with the name bcat-item-4. The # signs tell PHP what delimiter to use, because after the second #, the 's' indicates that the . should match newlines, which is essential in removing the entire declaration.

answered Feb 17, 2012 at 23:28

hexparrot

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2 Comments

Andrew Barber Over a year ago

You would have to be careful there are no } inside the rule, for example as part of a url for a background image.

artparks Over a year ago

this works a treat, thanks a lot. the usage will all be very simple, nothing beyond a background hex number or a color hex, nothing fancy so no stress. thanks again.

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