Remove multiple lines from file using PHP

Question

I have been searching for a number of hours now for a solution to remove a block of text within a file using PHP script.

There appears to be a number of options for removing lines of text, but not a block of text. I have attempted to use preg_replace ("/^$start.*?$end/s", $replace, $fdata) with the following, but have not found a solution that works.

I am sure that someone has done this already, so any help would be much appreciated.

$start = "# Copyright 2000-";
$end = "Agreement.";

# This software product may only be used strictly in accordance
# with the applicable written License Agreement.

Is this software you're writing? Or software you're trying to steal? — Matt
– Matt, Commented Aug 6, 2012 at 15:43
Now matt let's give him the benefit of the doubt, he could be open sourcing his own software, or updating a licence for software he or his company wrote. — VoronoiPotato
– VoronoiPotato, Commented Aug 6, 2012 at 15:45
Not stealing the software, but was updating the source code for my companies product...we ship source code and it's a requirement to have the copyright statement. Thanks VoroniPatato — user1270150
– user1270150, Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 23:10

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-17 20:38:18Z

5

You need multi-line mode (/m), otherwise your regex won't capture across multiple lines. Also, you should escape your regex parameters with preg_quote(), otherwise you may get undesired results (for example, in $end, it has a dot, which is a regex metacharacter, when you want it to match a single period.)

$regex = "/^" . preg_quote( $start, '/') .".*?". preg_quote( $end, '/') . "/sm";
preg_replace ( $regex, $replace, $fdata);

edited Nov 17, 2023 at 20:38

CommunityBot

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answered Aug 6, 2012 at 15:44

nickb

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