Simple ereg help

Hi,

I need two ereg expressions in my PHP code. One of them needs to check
that a string only contains letters, and the other needs to check that
the string only contains letters and commas (only one comma at each
time).

I thought that the code for only containing letters would be:

eregi("^([a-z])", $keywords);

But this only appears to be checking the first character.

I also have no idea how to do the one that also allows commas (though
not for lack of trying - believe me!)


So, basically, I want one expression that only lets in letters:
ie. hyasdlhlasdhl but not fhdilfd7800asdads;'

and one expression that only lets in letters and commas (one at a
time):
ie. hasiaks,asdas,adsads but not hdasl,,ahodsa,ads

Thanks alot.

re: Simple ereg help

ollie.mitch@gmail.com wrote:Use the preg-variant, it's faster.

preg_match('/^[a-z]+$/i',$text);
preg_match('/^[a-z]+(,[a-z]+)*?$/i',$text(;

Grtz,

--
Rik Wasmus

re: Simple ereg help

ollie.mitch@gmail.com wrote:eregi("/^[a-z]*$/",$keywords);

* null or more
+ one or more
eregi("[a-z]+,{1}",$keywords);

re: Simple ereg help

ollie.mitch@gmail.com:
'letters' means A-Z?

(untested)

preg_match('/\A[a-z]+\z/i',$subject)

Meaning: match, starting at the beginning and finishing at the end,
one or more letters, case insensitive.
(untested)

preg_match('/\A(,(?!,)|[a-z]*)+\z/i',$subject)

Meaning: match, one or more times, a comma that is not followed by
another comma or match zero or more letters.
Yeah, you haven't quantified the character class, e.g., /^[a-z]+/, or
anchored the pattern to the end of the subject, e.g., /^[a-z]+$/.

--
Jock

re: Simple ereg help

ollie.mitch@gmail.com wrote:Would you consider using preg_* instead of ereg?


Is "ñ" a letter? Is "" a string containing only letters?
Assuming 'yes' to both questions, try

if (preg_match('/^[[:alpha:]]*$/', $variable)) {
echo 'All letters.';
} else {
echo 'Not all letters.';
}
Can the string start or end with a (single) comma?
Assuming 'no', try

if (preg_match('/^[[:alpha:]]+(?:,[[:alpha:]]+)?$/', $variable)) {
echo 'Match';
} else {
echo 'No match.';
}

--
File not found: (R)esume, (R)etry, (R)erun, (R)eturn, (R)eboot