PHP regex content between tags with square brackets

Question

I am trying to create a regex that will give me everything that appears between [start-flashcards] and [end-flashcards]

I am using \[start-flashcards\](.*?)\[end-flashcards\] but this doesn't match. I must be missing something?

<p>[start-flashcards]</p>
  <p>[London|This is the capital city of the United Kingdom]</p>
  <p>[Paris|This is the capital city of France]</p>
  <p>[Madrid|This is the capital city of Spain]</p>
  <p>[Tokyo|This is the capital city of Japan]</p>
  <p>[Moscow|This is the capital city of Russia]</p>
<p>[end-flashcards]</p>

CinCout · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-13T11:56:44.320

0

You need this:

\[start-flashcards\]([\s\S]*?)\[end-flashcards\]

You've used ., which doesn't match line-breaks.

EDIT:

Turns out there is an efficient way of achieving the same:

Use your regex \[start-flashcards\](.*?)\[end-flashcards\] with the /s modifier flag. This flag allows . to match newline characters.

edited Sep 13 '17 at 11:56

answered Sep 13 '17 at 09:55

CinCout

8,291
9
47
55

No, do not use `[\s\S]`. It is a work around. Use `.` with `/s` modifier. – Wiktor Stribiżew Sep 13 '17 at 10:36
When you say workaround, does it have any side-effects? – CinCout Sep 13 '17 at 11:45
1

A built-in `.` matches in a more efficient way, faster. Surely not that faster for us to notice, but still... – Wiktor Stribiżew Sep 13 '17 at 11:46

PHP regex content between tags with square brackets

1 Answers1