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What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

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What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

For instance, I have the following string:

table:column

I need to get "table" as the result of the php regular expression.

So, I need everything before the ":" symbol

After that regular expression is performed, I would also like to get everything after the ":" symbol, or "column" as well.

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

^(.+?):(.+?)$ That's pretty much it. That's a pretty simple regex, you might want to study them for yourself http://www.regular-expressions.info/, it's a pretty decent resource.

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

in this case I would use split.

 Help with Code Tags 
 php Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
$parts = split(":", "table:column");
$parts[0] //table
$parts[1] //column
$parts = split(":", "table:column");
$parts[0] //table
$parts[1] //column

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

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Originally Posted by scrager

in this case I would use split.
Help with Code Tags

php Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
$parts = split(":", "table:column");
$parts[0] //table
$parts[1] //column
$parts = split(":", "table:column"); $parts[0] //table $parts[1] //column

Whats the difference between that and explode?

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

Split and explode are the same thing, they are just two different names.

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

Hmm...Just googled it to double check and it said that split uses regex where as explode uses a string.

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

That and explode is supposed to execute faster due to the lack of regex, although for what the OP wants, I doubt it will make much difference which is used.

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

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Originally Posted by !Unreal

Hmm...Just googled it to double check and it said that split uses regex where as explode uses a string.

If explode uses a string and split uses regex then what does preg_split use? What is the difference between split and preg_split? Just curious.

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Re: What is the php regular expression to get everything before a certain character?

Feb 21st, 2009

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Originally Posted by cwarn23

If explode uses a string and split uses regex then what does preg_split use? What is the difference between split and preg_split? Just curious.

"explode() takes a delimiter to split by ... split() takes a regular expression"
"documentation says that preg_split() is faster than split()"
http://blog.brianhartsock.com/2007/0...lode-vs-split/

"preg_split(), which uses a Perl-compatible regular expression syntax, is often a faster alternative to split(). If you don't require the power of regular expressions, it is faster to use explode(), which doesn't incur the overhead of the regular expression engine."
- http://uk3.php.net/split

Some speed stats: http://forums.codewalkers.com/php-co...ode-71423.html

So in answer to your question, preg_split uses regex like split. However, I don't know what the exact difference is.