How to change PCRE default delimiters

[Markus Elfring]

Hello,

I try to use alternative delimiters for a regular expression.
When will it be supported?

www@mike:/home/www > /usr/local/bin/php -a
Interactive mode enabled

<?php
preg_match('m!A (\d*)B!', 'A12345B', $X));
?>
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.2.3
Content-type: text/html

<br />
<b>Parse error</b>: parse error in <b>-</b> on line <b>2</b><br />

http://perldoc.com/perl5.8.4/pod/perlrequick.html

Best regards,
Markus Elfring

[Jasper Bryant-Greene]

Markus Elfring wrote:

I try to use alternative delimiters for a regular expression.
When will it be supported?

<?php
preg_match('m!A (\d*)B!', 'A12345B', $X));
?>

<b>Parse error</b>: parse error in <b>-</b> on line <b>2</b><br />

It is supported, but you have one too many brackets on the end of that
line, before the semicolon. That's what's causing the parse error.

--
Jasper Bryant-Greene
Cabbage Promotions

[John Dunlop]

Markus Elfring wrote:

I try to use alternative delimiters for a regular expression.
When will it be supported?
Already is.

| The expression should be enclosed in the delimiters, a
| forward slash (/), for example. Any character can be used
| for delimiter as long as it's not alphanumeric or
| backslash (\). If the delimiter character has to be used
| in the expression itself, it needs to be escaped by
| backslash. Since PHP 4.0.4, you can also use Perl-style
| (), {}, [], and <> matching delimiters.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php

[ ... ]
preg_match('m!A (\d*)B!', 'A12345B', $X));

----------------------------------------^^
As someone else said, you've one too many there.

Use '!A(\d*)B!'. No 'm', since this isn't Perl.

[ ... ]

--
Jock

[Markus Elfring]

> > preg_match('m!A (\d*)B!', 'A12345B', $X));

----------------------------------------^^
As someone else said, you've one too many there.
Thanks for this hint.
I'm sorry for this nasty typo;

Use '!A(\d*)B!'. No 'm', since this isn't Perl.

Is there missing anything about "pattern delimiters" in the documentation?
http://de.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-match.php

[Markus Elfring]

> [ ... ]

| The expression should be enclosed in the delimiters, a
| forward slash (/), for example. Any character can be used
| for delimiter as long as it's not alphanumeric or
| backslash (\). If the delimiter character has to be used
| in the expression itself, it needs to be escaped by
| backslash. Since PHP 4.0.4, you can also use Perl-style
| (), {}, [], and <> matching delimiters.
[ ... ]

It would help if this description from the introduction will be
repeated on more pages for the other functions.

[John Dunlop]

Markus Elfring wrote:

[ Re documentation of PCRE delimiters ]

It would help if this description from the introduction will be
repeated on more pages for the other functions.

Having glanced through the section again, I see where
confusion might arise; though I admit I hadn't noticed
before.

The terms 'pattern', 'regex', 'expression', and 'regular
expression' seem to be used interchangeably . The
introduction to PCREs uses the term 'expression' in the same
sense as 'pattern' is used in the separate section on
'Pattern Syntax'; but in the preg_* function docs, 'pattern'
means an opening delimiter, a pattern proper, an ending
delimiter, plus optional pattern modifiers. With more than
one name for a single thing, and a single name for more than
one thing, mystification comes as no surprise.

I trust you've sorted it out though. ;o)

--
Jock