Regex ending syntax

Hello,

I am trying to make a comment line reader that reads the value between a sort of syntax.

However it has an space at the end and ofc I could use the trim functions but wondering if its possible within regular expressions.

Code:

---

<?PHP

$var = '--- lol lol ---';

$count = preg_match_all('~---(?:[[:space:]])?(.*)[^[:space:]]$(?:[[:space:]])?---~',$var,$reg);

var_dump($reg);

?>

array
  0 =>
    array
      0 => string '--- lol lol ---' (length=15)
  1 =>
    array
      0 => string 'lol lol ' (length=8)

---

I thought something like this:

~---(?:[[:space:]])?(.*)[^[:space:]]$(?:[[:space:]])?---~

(.*)[^[:space:]]$ <- doesn't work

But it doesn't work.
Any suggestions / something to add?

Thanks in advance

.. I have no idea if you added those :space: words by yourself to illustrate that there was a space there or not, but if you did -- in the future, you should not. people who help you are going to copy and paste your code, not attempt to re-type it ;)

anyhow, I don't know what you were doing. I'm not sure if you're a super regular expression whiz or just some guy trying to get something to work. I created the following regular expression to suit your needs; I've written a quick explanation of how it works before you go ahead with using it.

PHP Code:

---

$match = '/^---[\s]*(.*[^\s])[\s]*---$/'; 


---

so. what this will do is look at the beginning of the string (^) and looks for three dashes. then, it looks for zero or more whitespace characters (\s), and then matches any character zero or more times that is not a whitespace character. then, it looks for zero or more whitespace characters again, followed by three dashes. this is the end of the string ($). it will only actually match the string found within the dashes, excluding any whitespace encountered on the edges of the string.

hope that works out for you.

that helped. But run into an other problem.

now for example if I take like 3 statements.

--- comment [ something ] [ reason] time [ timestamp ] ---

it will find something ] date [ reason instead of something.

I figured cause of its only on the end of the group( (.+[^\s\[]) not ending with with ] but also cant contain a ]

any suggestions?

regex for now:

PHP Code:

---

$match = '~^\---[\s]*comment\[[\s]*(.+[^\s\]])[\s*\][\s]*\[[\s]*(.+[^\s\]])[\s]*\][\s]*(?:reason[\s]*\[(.+[^\s\]])[^\s]*\][\s]*)?\}$~'; 


---