REGEX: Quotes still captured, don't want them

[Robert Oschler]

I am trying to strip out the contents of all double-quoted phrases in a
string. I tried the following:

preg_match_all("/(?:\").*?(?:\")/i", $theString, $matches,
PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

Given the following input string, whose quotes are escaped (slashed):

dogs \"bean bags\" cats \"in quotes\"

I get these two matches:

"bean bags\"
"in quotes\"

As you can see, I'm still capturing the quotes and one, but curiously not
both, of the slashes.

I want to get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes, so here are my questions:

1) How can I get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes?

2) Why are the double-quotes still being captured despite my use of
non-capturing parentheses?

3) Why did only one of the slashes get captured?

Thanks

[Janwillem Borleffs]

Robert Oschler wrote:

1) How can I get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes?

2) Why are the double-quotes still being captured despite my use of
non-capturing parentheses?

The (?:...) syntax does capture the specified character sequences; what you
are really after are assertions:

'/(?<=\\\")([^\"]+)[^\s](?=\\\")/i'

Mind the [^\s]; I have put it there to distinguish between \"bean bags\" and
\" cats \", which is also captured as a quoted substring otherwise.
3) Why did only one of the slashes get captured?

Because you didn't mark the backslashes as literal characters, as in:

'/(?:\\\").*?(?:\\\")/i' (Also note the single quotes enclosing the pattern)
JW

[Robert Oschler]

"Janwillem Borleffs" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:42**********************@news.euronet.nl...
Robert Oschler wrote:

1) How can I get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes?

2) Why are the double-quotes still being captured despite my use of
non-capturing parentheses?

The (?:...) syntax does capture the specified character sequences; what

you are really after are assertions:

'/(?<=\\\")([^\"]+)[^\s](?=\\\")/i'

Mind the [^\s]; I have put it there to distinguish between \"bean bags\" and \" cats \", which is also captured as a quoted substring otherwise.

3) Why did only one of the slashes get captured?

Because you didn't mark the backslashes as literal characters, as in:

'/(?:\\\").*?(?:\\\")/i' (Also note the single quotes enclosing the

pattern)

JW

Janwillem,

Thanks! That does it. Another chapter in the neverending battle between
the characters we use to program in, being the same characters we have to
manipulate in text strings. :)

Robert

[Alexey Kulentsov]

Robert Oschler wrote:

I am trying to strip out the contents of all double-quoted phrases in a
string. I tried the following:

preg_match_all("/(?:\").*?(?:\")/i", $theString, $matches,
PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

Given the following input string, whose quotes are escaped (slashed):

dogs \"bean bags\" cats \"in quotes\" ....
I want to get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes, so here are my questions:

preg_match_all('/(?:\\\\")(.*?)(?:\\\\")/i', $theString, $matches,
PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

Use $matches[1];