Emacs regex headache

rylan76 · 10-19-2011, 09:14 AM

Hi guys

I have strings that looks like this in Emacs:

$_POST['banner_name']
$_POST['banner_alt_text']
$_POST['banner_location_type']

I'm searching for an Emacs regex that will match the whole string, e. g

$_POST['

and then any number of characters up to the next

']

My problem is how do I "say" to emacs "match up to the next ' "?

I so far have

\$_POST['

which works but how do I now "say" "from the ' to the second (irrespective of character count) "'" character and then the ] at the end?

Thanks!

grail · 10-19-2011, 10:02 AM

Well normal way is to say give me all that is not (I do not know emacs so you may have to play with it):

Code:

\$_POST['[^']*']

I would have thought you might need to escape the first and last square bracket??

MTK358 · 10-19-2011, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grail

Well normal way is to say give me all that is not (I do not know emacs so you may have to play with it):

I don't know if Emacs supports this, but some regex flavors let you put a "?" after a "*" or "+" to make it lazy instead of greedy (that is, it will match as little text as possible). Here is an example:

Code:

\$_POST\['.*?'\]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grail

I would have thought you might need to escape the first and last square bracket??

That's probably a good idea.

rylan76 · 10-20-2011, 02:48 AM

Hi guys

Thanks for the suggestions!

I tried the following:

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*?']
\$_POST\['[^]*+']
\$_POST\['[^]*-']

However, all variations only match

$_POST[b

Also

Code:

\$_POST\['.*?'\]

is Emacs invalid apparently...

E. g. I've still got the same problem, I can match the fixed parts of the string no problem, but the varying part between the ' ' quotes - how to specify "match any number of characters up to next ' " still eludes me.

Thanks for the assistance anyway!

grail · 10-20-2011, 03:32 AM

Did you try any of your first examples without the extra character after the asterisk?

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*?']

# so just have
\$_POST\['[^]*']

rylan76 · 10-20-2011, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grail

Did you try any of your first examples without the extra character after the asterisk?

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*?']

# so just have
\$_POST\['[^]*']

Hi grail

Yip, I tried

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*']

and also

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*'\]

and

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*'\]]

but like the rest, the first two only matches

$_POST['b

and the last is completely invalid - e. g. the two working ones just the first char between the quotes - instead of all the chars between the quotes...

E.g. it is the right track, I just need to get it to be "greedy" up to the next ' it encounters.

Thanks for the help.

Kind regards,

grail · 10-20-2011, 06:29 AM

I just looked back over all examples and realised you are not asking it to look for not an apostrophe??

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*']

# should be

\$_POST\['[^']*']

If this doesn't work try adding the apostrophe back to your other tests.

rylan76 · 10-20-2011, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grail

I just looked back over all examples and realised you are not asking it to look for not an apostrophe??

Code:

\$_POST\['[^]*']

# should be

\$_POST\['[^']*']

If this doesn't work try adding the apostrophe back to your other tests.

Mr. Grail you are a GENIUS

Your bottommost suggestion worked perfectly.

Thank you VERY much for your assistance - I've marked your post as helpful.

I'll go back to the Emacs docs now and see what the syntax exactly means - still learning this side.

Again, thank you.

Keep well

Stefan

grail · 10-20-2011, 09:08 AM

Cool ... glad we got there .. don't forget to mark as SOLVED.