Regular expression help (errors)

[tspek]

I'm getting this error

Warning: preg_match [function.preg-match-all]: Unknown modifier '.' in /home3/thephou0/public_html/pelotonpoints/includes/usac-scrape.php on line 24

I'm just trying to find a date in mm/dd/yyyy

code looks like this:

PHP Code:

**LINE 24** ---> $date_regex ='/(0[1-9]|1[012])[- /.](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- /.](19|20)[0-9]{2}/';
$n = preg_match($date_regex,$date_grab,$date); 


$date_grab = "07/26/2009 -BLAH BLAH BLAH"

[Fou-Lu]

You're delimiter is the / character. As soon as it hit it again (ie here: '/(0[1-9]|1[012])[- /), it considers everything else to be outside of the patterns and is expecting modifiers (such as msiU, etc). Correct it by either choosing a new delimiter (other common ones are # and |), or by escaping you're current / with \, so \/ instead.

[tspek]

Originally Posted by Fou-Lu

You're delimiter is the / character. As soon as it hit it again (ie here: '/(0[1-9]|1[012])[- /), it considers everything else to be outside of the patterns and is expecting modifiers (such as msiU, etc). Correct it by either choosing a new delimiter (other common ones are # and |), or by escaping you're current / with \, so \/ instead.

Is this a regular expression thing or a PHP thing, because I grabbed this expression from a library of regular expressions.

And thanks.

[Fou-Lu]

That I couldn't tell you for certain. I would suspect it is a regular expression thing; logically the pattern thinks its complete when you've provided it with an ending delimiter.

[MattF]

Originally Posted by Fou-Lu

I would suspect it is a regular expression thing;

It is.

[tspek]

Originally Posted by MattF

It is.

Then I guess that library sucks

[MattF]

Originally Posted by tspek

Then I guess that library sucks

Unless the author just had an off moment. It hapens to us all on occasion. If the same type of error is present in several regex, however, then the quality of the guidance would be debatable.

[Fou-Lu]

Originally Posted by MattF

Unless the author just had an off moment. It hapens to us all on occasion. If the same type of error is present in several regex, however, then the quality of the guidance would be debatable.

Yeah, if it was in a PHP page (.php, or any plain text), its definitely wrong. If it was on a webpage, it could have been a stripping issue (magic_quotes_runtime can potentially do that to you).