Return NonMatching Part of Regex

Question

I'm currenty trying to format some parts of a Brandname, but I'm stuck with getting the part that I need to format, example:

BrandTest®
BrandBottle®
BrandJuice®

I would like to have the parts between Brand and the ®.

I currently tried something like: /(?=(Brand))+(.*)+(®)/

But I'm getting everything except the part in the middle.

You didn't well understand what is a lookahead. – Casimir et Hippolyte Sep 26 '16 at 17:53 — Casimir et Hippolyte, Sep 26 '16 at 17:53

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 26 '16 at 14:56

1

You can change your regex to use this:

Brand(.*?)®

Working demo

Php code

$re = "/Brand(.*?)®/"; 
$str = "BrandTest® BrandBottle® BrandJuice®"; 

preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches);

answered Sep 26 '16 at 14:56

Federico Piazza

30,085
15
87
123

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

0

Maybe like this:

<?php
$brands = 'BrandTest® BrandBottle® BrandJuice®';
$brands = explode('Brand', $brands);
//you will get each brand in an array as:
//"Test®", "Bottle®", "Juice®"
?>

If you don't want the ® then this might help https://stackoverflow.com/a/9826656/4977144

edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

Community

1
1

answered Sep 26 '16 at 15:00

xYuri

369
2
17

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

Roll it up into a method and return your result:

function getQueryPiece($queryString) {
    preg_match('/\?\=Brand(.*)®/',$queryString,$matches);
    return $matches[1];
}

getQueryPiece("?=BrandBottle®"); // string(6) Bottle  
getQueryPiece("?=BrandTest®"); // string(4) Test  
getQueryPiece("?=BrandJuice®"); // string(5) Juice

This defines only 1 capturing group (the piece of the string between ?=Brand and ®). If you need to capture the other parts as well, just wrap each part in parens: '/(\?\=Brand)(.*)(®)/' However this will alter the position of that piece in the $matches array. It would be position 2.

I believe the initial problem in your pattern is the result of using '?' unescaped. Question marks have special meanings in regular expressions. Here's a good write up regarding that: Regex question mark

Return NonMatching Part of Regex

3 Answers3