Hi

Ive just started using preg_match to validate some form info, and ive become very lost and confused. is there a good tutorial on using preg_match that anyone can point me to. Basically my problem is this -

PHP Code:

if(preg_match("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\ \'\@\!\£\$\%\&\*\(]+$/",$string)) 


above is my preg_match function, the issue with it is that it will only catch an ilegal character if it is the last in the string. clearly this is of no use as a form validator but i have no clue as to why it is happening. all thoughts welcome.

mark

this is a bit helpful - http://zez.org/article/articleview/11/1/

First you have to determine of what you are trying to validate. The carot (^) symbol can mean two things. If its after the opening boundry, it means from the beginning of the string. If its on the right side of a square bracket ([), it means a negated characture class meaning that it will allow all chars except those defined within the class.

A really good tutorial site: http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html

I am no expert on PHP regular expressions. Are the comments on the php.net site for preg_match helpful?

http://us3.php.net/preg_match

Originally Posted by joder

I am no expert on PHP regular expressions. Are the comments on the php.net site for preg_match helpful?

http://us3.php.net/preg_match

The comments seen there are good for about any regular expression chore you may have, its just written in conjunction with the PHP expression functions.

Regular Expressions is a language syntax that stands alone and uses an engine to parse them seperate to what other language you are using them in. Regex patterns can be used within almost every other programming and scripting environment that is used now.