Re: Regex expert needed

[michael <linux@networkingnewsletter.org.uk>]

On Mon, 2005-05-02 at 16:08 +0100, Alan Chandler wrote:

> For instance I want the parse this string
> 
> Form = 'This is a bad bad thing, but not as bad as it would be if \"x = 5\", 
> so thats it',Connection=5
> 
> Into the strings
> 
> Form
> 
> =
> 
> 'This is a bad bad thing, but not as bad as it would be if \"x=5\", so thats 
> it'
> 
> ,
> 
> Connection
> 
> =
> 
> 5
> 
> using the php preg_split() finction.  So, I first want to find a regex that 
> finds the commas I have split out (bit not the common in the quoted string, 
> and then for each substring put that through another version of preg_split() 
> which finds the = as delimeters.  Again in the quoted string, I want to 
> ignore the x=5 equal sign.
> 
> I actually did this in the end by the brute force method of scanning the 
> string character by character in php and using logic to determine where the 
> boundaries are.  Its just a regex ought to be much more elegant.

Would be yet harder still if you correct your grammar and put the
missing apostrophe in penultimate word, viz "that's"

-- 
Michael Bane
Atmospheric Physics Group
University of Manchester