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How to use regular expressions in PHP

Validate user input, parse user input and file contents, and reformat strings

Nathan A. Good, Consultant, Alliance of Computer Professionals
Nathan A. Good is an author, software engineer, and system administrator in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. His books include PHP 5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach by Lee Babin, et al (Apress, 2005), Regular Expression Recipes for Windows Developers: A Problem-Solution Approach (Apress, 2005), Regular Expressions: A Problem-Solution Approach (Apress, 2005), and Professional Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 by Kapil Sharma et al (Wrox, 2004).

Summary:  Regular expressions can provide a powerful way to work with text. Using regular expressions, you can do complex validation of user input, parse user input and file contents, and reformat strings. PHP provides simple methods that let you use POSIX and PCRE regular expressions. This tutorial discusses the differences between POSIX and PCRE, and how you can use regular expressions and PHP V5.

Date:  10 Jan 2006
Level:  Intermediate
PDF:  A4 and Letter (36 KB | 11 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity:  13541 views
Comments:  

Before you start

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About this tutorial

Regular expressions can provide a powerful way to work with text. Using regular expressions, you can do complex validation of user input, parse user input and file contents, and reformat strings.

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Objectives

This tutorial will get you up and running with PHP's regular expressions by focussing on simple methods that let you use POSIX and PCRE regular expressions. We will discuss the differences between POSIX and PCRE, and how you can use regular expressions and PHP V5. You'll learn how, when, and why to use regular expressions.

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System requirements

You'll be able to complete this tutorial on any Microsoft® Windows® or UNIX®-like system (including Mac OS X and Linux®) that has PHP installed. Because we're covering what's built into PHP, you won't need anything more than PHP installed on your system.

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