Brian --
Sorry if I seem dense. Your answer (although probably right on target)
leaves me still confused :-)
The example you gave me:
$string = 'aaaa.aaaa';
print(eregi("^([[:alnum:]]+\.[[:alnum:]]+)", $string) ? 'matched' : 'no
match');
Now with your example (above) the following MATCHED (when, I think it
shouldn't have:)
(example 1)
aaaa.a!
aaaa.a#$%
aaaa.a23!%
The following did NOT match.
(example 2)
a!.aaaa
a%!.aaaa
aaaa.!a34
Now when I took your example and added the $ at the end, like so:
print(eregi("^([[:alnum:]]+\.[[:alnum:]]+)$", $string) ? 'matched' : 'no
match');
Everything that MATCHED in example 1 no longer matched, and in-fact, just
everything I wanted to match -- matched -- ie. just letters and numbers.
So... even though I had the [:alnum:] tag in the end -- without the $ at the
end it seems pointless?
So, I guess my (dense) question is -- why? Why doesn't it just work with
the [:alnum:] tag? I'm assuming ALNUM stands for Alpha-Numeric *only*?
"Brian Clark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hi Jason,
>
> @ 2:40:34 AM on 4/20/2001, Jason Caldwell wrote:
>
> > I'm a little lost as to the exact function of the following:
>
> > ^ and $
>
> ^ beginning of a string.
> $ end of a string.
>
> > I noticed in the example below... that when I added the $ to the end of
the
> > expression, I wasn't able anymore to put a non-alphanumeric character in
the
> > end, for example (without the $)
>
> > I was able to enter the following and get a 'match'
>
> > aaa.a! <-- matched
>
> Matches the expression with one or more alnum's before the \. and one
> or more after the \.
>
> ! is [:punct:]
>
> > aaa.! <-- no match
>
> No alnum after the \. If you want to match that, replace the + with a
> *
>
> > after I put the $ on the end
>
> > aaa.a! <-- no match
>
> Doesn't match the expression \.[[:alnum:]]+$
>
> > aaa.aa32 <-- match...
>
> > So, am I to understand that the ^ and $ are used to tell the expression
that
> > it *must* match what the expression expects?
>
> Yep; more precisely, ^[something]$ matches the whole string.
>
>
> -Brian
> --
> PGP is spoken here: 0xE4D0C7C8
> Please, DO NOT carbon copy me on list replies.
>
>
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