DaWei

A one-line solution does not imply an efficient solution. Regex is rarely the proper choice when a substr will do.

__________________
Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

headzoo

DaWei, I agree 100%. If I had a choice between:


and


I would take the latter every time. However in Intimidat0r's case, he's trying to come up with a complicated, difficult to maintain solution, when a simple regexp would do.

Furthermore, if Intimidat0r is new to PHP, he may not have been exposed to regexp yet, and IMHO regexps are one of the handiest tools for any developer to have in his toolbox.

- Sean

DaWei

You're correct about the utility of regex, of course. I have an application written in Python and in PHP. I used regex in one and substr in the other because I knew the regex wasn't a critical penalty. I'm just trying to point out that the one-liner regex is rife with loops and emits one helluva chunk of code. That isn't necessarily a characteristic that's picked up on by a novice.

__________________
Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

Arevos

Whilst I agree generally, I'm not sure this applies in this particular case. PHP is an interpreted language, so you're going to have to do some parsing, regardless, and a regular expression is going to be faster to interpret than a PHP. Regarding execution time, I'm not sure you'd see considerable difference between a function that uses multiple conditions, loops, and substr calls, and a one-line regular expression executed by a binary regex parser. Indeed, a regular expression may even be faster.