Posted by Noozer on 07/20/07 09:11

Trying to parse some strings and I could really use some help with a regular
expression (and how to test it in php).

My sample strings:

Bob 1/0/X0 134 128 1 5 Data
A comment line
Bob 1/0/X2 84 82 25 0 COMPARTMENT1-3
Bob 1/0/X1 1710 167 0 4 123 N/A
Bob 11/0/X3 84 7 0 6 Data

I'm trying to identify any string that starts with "Bob", then a space, then
a digit OR a space, then #/#/X#, three spaces, a 1 to 4 digit number, some
spaces, a 1 to 4 digit number, some spaces, a 1 to 4 digit number, some
spaces, a 1 to 4 digit number, some spaces, some alpha characters.

In my sample, the first, third and fifth strings would test positive.

I'm sure I've botched this up, but this is what I have so far.

if (
ereg('^Bob..[0-9]/[0-9]/X[0-9]\b[0-9]{1,4}(.{9,13})[0-9]{2,4}(.{9,13})[A-Za-z]*'
, $line ) ) { ...mycode... }

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