PREC Modifers

[james438]

good question. \b is a bit harder to understand; at least for me it was. \b is the boundary between a word character and a non word character. For example

$test='####tttt';
$test=preg_replace('/\b/','correct',$test);
echo "$test";

// this produces: ####correcttttt

I wasn't sure how to do what you wanted without \b, because it would have failed under certain circumstances.

[bluewalrus]

Thanks, yes that could did work I finally got around to finishing my word/open office/ckeditor convertor.

I don't have a mark as resolved option anymore though I guess maybe an admin will mark it for me.

[bluewalrus]

I've returned with a varied question (this one is to remove duplicating tags). I've got this code now

$code_is = preg_replace('/<([a-z,A-Z].*?)>\s+<\1>/s', " <$1>", $code_is);
//initially had $code_is = preg_replace('/<(.*?)>\s+<\1>/s', " <$1>", $code_is);
$code_is = preg_replace('/<(\/.*?)><\1>/s', "<$1> ", $code_is); 

which is suppose to filter something like

<em> <em>et al.</em></em>

to

<em>et al.</em>

Well it works there it is deleting <td> tags entered like this

<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>

which becomes

<td>&nbsp;</td>

[james438]

We should probably try and get a moderator to split this thread.

Anyway

<?php
$code_is="<em> <em>et al.</em></em>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>";
$code_is = preg_replace('/<([a-zA-Z].*?)>\s*<\1>/s', " <$1>", $code_is); 
$code_is = preg_replace('/<(\/.*?)><\1>/s', "<$1> ", $code_is);
echo $code_is;
?>

I didn't look too closely into why it wasn't working. All I did was fix a few of the more obvious errors and then tried it out again and it seems to be working.

EDIT: This is a little better though:

$code_is = preg_replace('/<([a-zA-Z].*?)>\s*<\1>/si', " <$1>", $code_is); 
$code_is = preg_replace('/<(\/.*?)><\1>/si', "<$1> ", $code_is);