php regex or | operator

Question

I am doing a preg_replace:

$pattern = '/<ul>/';
$replacement = "";
$string = "hello <ul> how are you doing </ul>";
echo preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string);

That will replace my <ul> with "" but Id like to replace anything that is a <ul> or </ul>, I am not getting how to use the | (or) character though.

I try like this, but it is not working right:

$pattern = '/<ul>|</ul>/';
$replacement = "";
$string = "hello <ul> how are you doing </ul>";
echo preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string);

Any help would be surely appreciated

Thanks, Bryan

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Jan 20 '11 at 04:07

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:08

20

You may need to escape the slash in /ul like this:

$pattern = '/<ul>|<\/ul>/';

or do this, not sure if it'll work:

$pattern = '/<\/?ul>/';

(the '?' means zero or one of the previous characters, which is '/' in this case.)

answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:08

Satya

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5

Another option is to use a different regex delimiter: `'~?ul>~'` – Alan Moore Jan 20 '11 at 05:29
1

<\/?ul> is a good one, and finally solved a regex bug I've been dealing with. Thanks for the tip! – Yohn Mar 06 '15 at 00:58

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:08

2

You have to escape the backslash.

/<ul>|<\/ul>/

answered Jan 20 '11 at 04:08

Byron Whitlock

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php regex or | operator

2 Answers2

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