preg_match problems

[Zugzwangle]

Hi... I have a string (called $textData) with the following format:

1. e4 {[%emt 0:00:10]} c5 {[%emt 0:00:04]} 2. c3 {[%emt 0:02:15]}

etc

 

I need to replace the square brackets/special chars within that string with " "...  so my first thought was to use preg_match to find the matches.. then preg_replace/str_replace to update them.

 

To find the patterns, I think this is correct:

preg_match('/\{([^\}]*)\}/', $textData, $matches);
	echo print_r($matches, true);
// returns Array ( 
[0] => {[%emt 0:00:10]} 
[1] => [%emt 0:00:10]
) 
// returns nothing else

 

I expected the preg_match to search through the whole of $textData.  Then I could replace the square brackets/special chars with a spaces. 

 

Thank you for your time!!

[Zugzwangle]

Oh right.. I didnt know of the function preg_match_all() !!!  Ok so, now I have the matches:

preg_match_all('/\{([^\}]*)\}/', $textData, $matches);
//Outputs:
//Array ( [0] => 
//Array ( [0] => {[%emt 0:00:10]} 
//[1] => {[%emt 0:00:04]} 
//[2] => {[%emt 0:02:15]} 
//[3] => {[%emt 0: 00:14]}
//))

So first stage done.. I can now access the elements of $matches..  Now I have to use preg_replace/str_replace to update them.. I'm not sure which yet!

 

[Zugzwangle]

ok I worked it out... :

		$splitTextData = preg_split("/\{([^\}]*)\}/", $textData);

	preg_match_all('/\{([^\}]*)\}/', $textData, $matches);
	foreach ($matches[0] as $matVal)
	{
		//echo $matVal;
		$matVal2 = preg_replace('/\[/', '', $matVal);
		$matVal3 = preg_replace('/\]/', '', $matVal2);
		$matVal4 = preg_replace('/\%/', '', $matVal3);
		$matVal5 = preg_replace('/emt/', '', $matVal4);
		//$matVal5 = preg_replace('/[a-zA-]/', '', $matVal4);
		$matchArr[] = $matVal5;
	}
	//echo print_r($matchArr, true).'<br>';
	foreach ($splitTextData as $tdKey => $tdVal)
	{
		$comboVal[] = $tdVal.$matchArr[$tdKey];
	}
	//echo print_r($comboVal, true);
	$textData2 = join(" ", $comboVal);