ID: 49550 User updated by: spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com Reported By: spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com Status: Bogus Bug Type: PCRE related Operating System: Linux PHP Version: 5.3.0 New Comment:
oops my previous workaround still doens't work echo preg_match('/^$|^(.(?:|(?1)))$/', 'abc'), "\n"; Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2009-09-14 11:05:33] spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com oops in that last one I meant echo preg_match('/^$|^(.(?:|(?1)))$/', 'ab'), "\n"; ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2009-09-14 10:58:29] spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com I found a solution: echo preg_match('/^|(.(?:|(?1)))$/', 'ab'), "\n"; but I still don't understand why the other one doesn't work ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2009-09-14 10:49:09] spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com But that still wouldn't explain why stuff like balanced parentheses matching /^(\(((?>[^()]+)|(?1))*\))$/ works. I am still waiting for an explanation on my example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2009-09-14 10:24:41] spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com Nevermind, so I think the reason is that PCRE differs from Perl in that a recursive "sub-"pattern (i.e. ?1, ?2, etc. but not ?0) only matches exactly what was matched before by that subgroup, even if there are other unused possibilities by that group. Is that correct? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2009-09-14 10:06:30] spoon dot reloaded at gmail dot com > Remove the $ and it works. Yeah but that changes the meaning. I want to enforce that it matches the entire string, and it doesn't do that. To give another example without a $, consider: echo preg_match('/^(|.(?1))x/', 'abx'), "\n"; Again, it works in Perl, but not in PHP. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at http://bugs.php.net/49550 -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=49550&edit=1