Return characters up to first nonalphanumeric character

Question

I want to obtain a part of a string up until the first non-alphanumeric character. Currently, I have the following strings with what I would like to show.

Go Forty Go (IRE) 471    -> Go Forty Go
Pearl Noir 15528258 D3   -> Pearl Noir
Synonym (ITY) 1793158-00 D1   -> Synonym

In the above cases, I want to pull characters before either a number or a (.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 16 '15 at 10:23

1

Do you mean this:

$repl = preg_replace('/\h*[^ a-zA-Z].*$/', '', $input);
Go Forty Go
Pearl Noir
Synonym

btw this is removing after first non-alphabetic+non-space character.

RegEx Demo

answered Jul 16 '15 at 10:23

anubhava

664,788
59
469
547

When i run the above i get the same output :S [code] $repl = preg_replace('/[^ a-zA-Z].*$/', '', $dropresults->childNodes->item(8)->textContent);[/code] echo $repl."
"; – emma perkins Jul 16 '15 at 10:29
Check my linked demo to see values getting replaced. What does `var_dump($dropresults->childNodes->item(8)->textContent);` show to you? Moreover try: '/\h*[^ a-zA-Z].*$/m' regex – anubhava Jul 16 '15 at 10:31
string(82) " Beau Mistral (IRE) 158-59316 D2 " – emma perkins Jul 16 '15 at 10:33
'/\h*[^ a-zA-Z].*$/m' just deletes all the text – emma perkins Jul 16 '15 at 10:34
[No, that's not correct, you can check this demo](https://regex101.com/r/wM8uX9/2) – anubhava Jul 16 '15 at 10:35

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 16 '15 at 10:28

You can use the following regex:

/^.*?(?=\s*[^\s\p{L}])/

$str = "Go Forty Go (IRE) 471    -> Go Forty Go";
$str2 = "Pearl Noir 15528258 D3   -> Pearl Noir";
$str3 = "Synonym (ITY) 1793158-00 D1   -> Synonym";
preg_match('/^.*?(?=\s*[^\s\p{L}])/', $str, $match);
echo $match[0] . PHP_EOL;
preg_match('/^.*?(?=\s*[^\s\p{L}])/', $str2, $match1);
echo $match1[0] . PHP_EOL;
preg_match('/^.*?(?=\s*[^\s\p{L}])/', $str3, $match2);
echo $match2[0] . PHP_EOL;

See IDEONE code

Output:

Go Forty Go
Pearl Noir
Synonym

The "core" of the regex is (?=\s*[^\s\p{L}]) look-ahead that makes matching stop at a non-letter or space preceded with optional whitespace (to trim the output).

If you have Unicode letters in your input, add u flag:

/^.*?(?=\s*[^\s\p{L}])/u

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 16 '15 at 10:24

0

Try this -

>>> preg_match_all("/^(.*?)\s*[(0-9]/m",$s, $matches)
=> 3
>>> $matches[1]
=> [   
       "Go Forty Go",
       "Pearl Noir",
       "Synonym"
   ]

answered Jul 16 '15 at 10:24

Kamehameha

5,258
1
19
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Return characters up to first nonalphanumeric character

3 Answers3