php preg_replace returning null

Question

Hi,

I'm pretty sure this is some stupid mistake from me but i haven't been able to debug where the error in this lies.

I'm trying to change image paths in html file with this regexp. It should work, but preg_replace is just returning null time after time.

preg_replace("(src=){1}([\"']){1}(.*)([\/]+)(.*[\"']{1})", '/my/path'.$5 , $source);

anyone care to lend a hand please?

Answer 1

There's a lot going on here.

1. /(src=){1}/ is the same as /src=/
2. .* probably isn't doing what you expect, as it matches a blank string (and is set to be greedy)
3. You are concatenating $5 to a string, but $5 will not be set in PHP; you probably meant '/my/path$5'

Really though, if you're trying to pull the src attribute out of an HTML (or XML) tag, you should be using the DOM. Refer to this comment.