another regex question

user creates a new folder thru form:

$foldername = stripslashes ( $_POST['foldername'] );
//This erase white-spaces on the beginning and the end in each line of a
string:
$foldername = preg_replace('~^(\s*)(.*?)(\s*)$~m', "\\2", $foldername);
//erases all NON-alfanumerics
$foldername = ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]+]","-",$foldername);

this is working ok, but i cant figure out how to allow spaces between words
(ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]+]","-", is inserting dashes)

thanks,
j

J. Frank Parnell wrote:

[ ... ]

> this is working ok, but i cant figure out how to allow spaces between words
> (ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]+]","-", is inserting dashes)

Substitute a space for the plus sign, giving you

ereg_replace('[^[:alnum:] ]','-',$subject)

Note, though, that as it was, your pattern matched any *one*
character excluding alphanumerics and the plus sign itself,
not any characters except one or more alphanumerics. That
is, the plus sign wasn't a metacharacter; it had no special
meaning.

--
Jock

"J. Frank Parnell" <JFrank@plateofshrimpp.com> wrote in message
news:KcedndOqPqEfcbjfRVn-vg@comcast.com...
> user creates a new folder thru form:
>
> $foldername = stripslashes ( $_POST['foldername'] );
> //This erase white-spaces on the beginning and the end in each line of a
> string:
> $foldername = preg_replace('~^(\s*)(.*?)(\s*)$~m', "\\2", $foldername);
> //erases all NON-alfanumerics
> $foldername = ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]+]","-",$foldername);
>
> this is working ok, but i cant figure out how to allow spaces between
words
> (ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]+]","-", is inserting dashes)
>
> thanks,
> j
>
>

preg_replace('/[^\w\x20]+/', '', trim($folder)) should do the trick.

"John Dunlop" <usenet+2004@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c904e4839740a23989883@News.Individual.NE T...
> J. Frank Parnell wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
>
>> this is working ok, but i cant figure out how to allow spaces between
>> words
>> (ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]+]","-", is inserting dashes)
>
> Substitute a space for the plus sign, giving you
>
> ereg_replace('[^[:alnum:] ]','-',$subject)
>
> Note, though, that as it was, your pattern matched any *one*
> character excluding alphanumerics and the plus sign itself,
> not any characters except one or more alphanumerics. That
> is, the plus sign wasn't a metacharacter; it had no special
> meaning.

Thanks, i thought i had tried every possible combination. And i was under
the impression that the + was 'means "match one or more of the previous
expression", and i had many combinations with that + sign that caused the
alnum-only thing to not work...

also, i added this
$foldername = preg_replace('/\s\s+/', ' ', $foldername); to get rid of
excess spaces. so, now i have:

$foldername = stripslashes ( $_POST['foldername'] );
$foldername = preg_replace('~^(\s*)(.*?)(\s*)$~m', "\\2", $foldername);
$foldername = ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:] ]","-",$foldername);
$foldername = preg_replace('/\s\s+/', ' ', $foldername);

which, as far as i can tell, makes appropriate folder names.

thanks again, j