Re: RegEx - Chk for special chars

On 30.04.2007 01:37 M Kinnear wrote:
I want to check a string only contains a-z 0-9 ( ) . and #

I've used

ereg("^[a-zA-z0-9().#]*)$"),$instr)

This line has a syntax error. I'd suggest

preg_match('/^[\w().#]*$/D', $instr)


which parses a string correctly until I try and parse a !,",£,$ ... or any of the other special/reserved characters.

First q: what am I doing wrong
Second q: is there clarification on whether characters need to be escaped when part of a regex statement? i.e., should it be [$] or [\$] - some websites/posts state they should be escaped, others say they shouldn't

Inside a character class ([...]) only slash \ caret ^ and dash - have special meaning and should be escaped. All other chars are taken literally. When using double quotes, you also have to escape dollar sign when it comes before a letter.




Thanks

Matt




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