PHP Regex regular expression including space

Question

I'm trying to identify if the user has typed someone else's username if the typed an at symbol (@) before it, much like on twitter. My function can recognise the @ symbol and the username after it, but it includes the a spacebar after it (if there was one).

Here's my regex stuff

/@([A-Za-z0-9_]+)(\s|\Z)/

So let's say that a user typed

@testificate blah blah blah

My function would select the following (between the | symbols)

|@testificate |blah blah blah

When what I actually want is for it to select

|@testificate| blah blah blah

It includes the space afterwards and that's not what I want. Is there a better way to do this? I'm turning the @ tags into links with a preg_replace, can anyone help me out? Thanks

Be careful. This regular expression will erroneously match portions of e-mail addresses. You probably want to ensure that the character preceding the "@" is a nonword (\W) character. — davidchambers
– davidchambers, Commented Nov 22, 2011 at 9:17

Utku Yıldırım · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-22 09:23:10Z

2

why you add (\s|\Z) ?

\s space
\Z End of subject or newline at end

Regex: /@([A-Za-z0-9_]+)/

Edit:

davidchambers's suggestion

Shorter Regex: /@(\w)+/

edited Nov 22, 2011 at 9:23

answered Nov 22, 2011 at 9:02

Utku Yıldırım

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2 Comments

2kan Over a year ago

Actually, I can't remember why.. must have been stuck in a train of thought that, looking back, doesn't make much sense now. Well that's awkward, but thanks for your answer! I'll mark it as the answer when I can :)

davidchambers Over a year ago

/@([A-Za-z0-9_]+)/ can be further simplified: /@(\w+)/. :)

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