I need to match a few urls for an application I'm working on;
So, I've got this reference string:
content/course/32/lesson/61/content/348
and I need a pattern that matches either
content
OR
content/course/[number]/lesson/[number]/content/[number]
What I've done so far is come up with this pattern:
$my_regex = "/content(\/?|(\/course\/\d{1,4}\/lesson\/\d{1,4}\/content\/\d{1,4}))$/";
which however has the following problem: This string returns a match which should otherwise not:
content/course/32/lesson/61/content
I'm thinking that it's got something to do with the word content repeating twice but I'm not entirely sure.
Any help is much appreciated.
The reason for the match is the alternation.
content\/?$
matches
content/course/32/lesson/61/content
To fix this, add a ^ (beginning of line) to the start of your regex to ensure the entire string is matched and not only the ending:
/^content(\/?|(\/course\/\d{1,4}\/lesson\/\d{1,4}\/content\/\d{1,4}))$/
this works:
/(^content\/?|content\/course\/\d{1,4}\/lesson\/\d{1,4}\/content\/\d{1,4})$/