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CPanel and Regex

Discussion in 'cPanel Developers' started by Squiggle, Aug 13, 2013.

  1. Squiggle

    Squiggle Registered

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    Hello all, first post so please be gentle :)

    (also not a programmer so just trying to find my way in the regex syntax - looked at various sites but can't crack the problem as yet) ...


    I have an account filter that I am trying to set up that will catch a four letter string ... unfortunately the letters can be spaced in various ways:

    A B C D
    AB C D
    A-B_C D

    etc etc

    I have been using A[ -_]B[ -_]C[ -_]D which catches everything except where two characters are together (like second example above).

    Is there an easy way to include "no-space" as a character so that the second example above would also be caught?


    Thanks in advance (and sorry if this is really simple!)
     
    #1 Squiggle, Aug 13, 2013
  2. cPanelMichael

    cPanelMichael Forums Analyst
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    Hello :)

    I have moved this over to the "cPanel Developers" forum because you may get more user input related to regex syntax here.

    Thank you.
     
    #2 cPanelMichael, Aug 15, 2013
  3. KostonConsulting

    KostonConsulting Well-Known Member

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    ? will match 0 or 1 instance of a pattern so you'll want to use that after your groupings for space, -, _, like so:

    A[ -_]?B[ -_]?C[ -_]?D

    If that is the entire string you're trying to match, you can use the ^ (starts with) and $ (ends with) operators as well so that you don't match something like rstlneA B-CDxyz:

    ^A[ -_]?B[ -_]?C[ -_]?D$
     
    #3 KostonConsulting, Aug 16, 2013
  4. Squiggle

    Squiggle Registered

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    Thanks Dave, I will give it a go!
     
    #4 Squiggle, Sep 10, 2013
  5. Squiggle

    Squiggle Registered

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    Just a quickie Dave,

    I have given this a go and the first example works great but the second doesnt seem to capture anything:

    If I use (say) M[ -_]?O[ -_]?N[ -_]?K it captures all sorts of MONK, M-on k, m o-n-k which is great however, as you noted, it also catches "monkey" etc

    When I tried the second example ^M[ -_]?O[ -_]?N[ -_]?K$ it doesnt seem to catch anything.

    Am I missing something in how I am using the second example ... should this catch where there is a space at either end (" monk ")?

    Sorry if this is basic syntax but I am a complete newbie at this :)
     
    #5 Squiggle, Sep 11, 2013
  6. cPAndrewHodge

    cPAndrewHodge cPanel UI Developer
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    The '$' is a special character that indicates the end of a regex, so the second regex '^M[ -_]?O[ -_]?N[ -_]?K$' is basically doing this...

    (^) Find a string that starts with the following match
    (M) Match the character 'M'
    ([ -_]) Match any of the character set ' ', '-', or '_'
    (?) Match the previous step 0 or 1 times
    (O) Match the character 'O'
    ([ -_]) Match any of the character set ' ', '-', or '_'
    (?) Match the previous step 0 or 1 times
    (N) Match the character 'N'
    ([ -_]) Match any of the character set ' ', '-', or '_'
    (?) Match the previous step 0 or 1 times
    (K) Match the character 'K'
    ($) The previous character must be the end of the string


    If you remove the ^ and $ it will find any instance of MONK, including " MONK", " MONK ", "MONK ", "ASDFMONKASDF". If you want spaces you can add [ ]* to the beginning or end of the regex like so: ^[ ]*M[ -_]?O[ -_]?N[ -_]?K[ ]*$
     
    #6 cPAndrewHodge, Sep 13, 2013
  7. KostonConsulting

    KostonConsulting Well-Known Member

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    If you use ^, it means, this will appear at the beginning of my string. So if the string is 'aMONK', it won't match. It will need to be 'MONK', or 'M-O NK', or anything else that starts with a M.

    Nope, it should not catch anything with a space at either end. This specifically asks for a M at the beginning and K at the end. If you also want to catch spaces, you need to add them like so (also accounting for lowercase):

    [ ]?[Mm][ -_]?[Oo][ -_]?[Nn][ -_]?[Kk][ ]?

    Think of each [ ] in the above as a character. [Nn] means the next character will be either 'N' or 'n'. [ -_] means the next character will be either ' ', '-', '_', or if none of those, ignore these choices and test the next pattern found. [ ]? means it will either be ' ', or if not a ' ', ignore this and test the next pattern found.

    If the line always starts with space or M/m, add ^ to the beginning of this. Match only to the character K/k or ' ' by adding $ to the end of it.
     
    #7 KostonConsulting, Sep 15, 2013
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