PHP regex starting and ending with < and > produces an unknown modifier warning

Question

I got a bunch of XML files that contain an ID. e.g.

<WINE_PRODUCER>9456</WINE_PRODUCER>

I need to check, e.g. which file contains a WINE_PRODUCER id=9456:

$content = file_get_contents("my.xml");
$Num = 9456;
$pattern = "<WINE_PRODUCER>$Num<\/WINE_PRODUCER>";
$res = preg_match("$pattern", $content);

I got error PHP Warning: preg_match(): Unknown modifier '9'

basically it does not like numbers in the pattern.

What do I do? googled a lot but all lead to matching a group of numbers...

PS: I do not want to use DOM xml parser in this case due to performance.

Are you on a Unix/Linux platform and can you make use of tools such as grep? — John Parker
– John Parker, Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 15:49
you can use strpos to accomplish the same thing. $res = strpos("<WINE_PRODUCER>$Num<\/WINE_PRODUCER>", $content); To test: if ($res !== false){ // found it } — Orangepill
– Orangepill, Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 15:52

Halcyon · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-05 15:48:58Z

1

If you always need to match a fixed number you can just do a strstr.

$num = 9456;
$find = "<WINE_PRODUCER>". $num . "</WINE_PRODUCER>";
$found = strstr($content, $find) !== false;

To fix your regular expression, you need to specify delimiters:

$pattern = "@<WINE_PRODUCER>$Num<\/WINE_PRODUCER>@";

should work, but you probably don't need a regexp.

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 15:48

Halcyon

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Flosculus · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-05 15:52:17Z

1

Try:

$pattern = sprintf(preg_quote('<WINE_PRODUCER>%s<\/WINE_PRODUCER>'), $num);

echo '/'.$pattern.'/';

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 15:52

Flosculus

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1 Comment

mickmackusa Jan 19 at 11:02

preg_quote() is poorly implemented in this unexplained answer because preg_quote() does not escape forward slashes by default -- that pattern delimiter must be nominated as its second parameter.

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