I am trying to escape a PCRE in PHP for use in a script. For some reason I can't get it to function when it has been escaped, I've only managed to get it working when the REGEX is given as a form input.
The Regex I'm using is:
$pattern = '£((http|ftp|https):\/\/)?([\w\-_]+(?:(?:\.[\w\-_]+)+))([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&/~\+#])?£';
So far I have tried:
preg_quote(): converts the Regex to the following and throws an error: £((http\|ftp\|https):\/\/)\?([\w\-_]+(\?:(\?:\.[\w\-_]+)+))([\w\-\.,@\?\^\=%&:/~\+#]*[\w\-\@\?\^\=%&/~\+#])\?£
htmlentities(): gives error: Warning: preg_match(): Unknown modifier 'a'
addslashes(): same as above
mixture of the 3: same as above
Does anyone have an idea of what I'm doing wrong?
The pound symbol was the issue here, replacing it to an exclamation mark solved the problem. Working expression:
$pattern = '!((http|ftp|https):\/\/)?([\w\-_]+(?:(?:\.[\w\-_]+)+))([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&/~\+#])?!';
For some reason this is working fine with no escape functions.