Question

RegEx to implement BBCode style quoting in a forum post

Asked by: bobbit31

hello experts,

I need a regular expression that will match something like the following:

------------------------------------------------------
[quote name='some name' date='some date']
This is what is being quoted.
[/quote]
------------------------------------------------------

this should also support nested quotes, such as:
------------------------------------------------------
[quote name='some name' date='some date']
   [quote name='other name' date='other date']
       This is a nested quote.
   [/quote]
   this is the original quote.
[/quote]
------------------------------------------------------

the quote doesn't necessarily have to be the first thing either... there can be text both before and after.

if possible, i'd like to make the name and date attributes optional (as in, they don't have to be there).

it's important that it matches both the opening and closing tag as i'm going to be replacing it with divs and if you leave out the [/quote] it will end up breaking the layout.

Thank you, your help is greatly appreciated!

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Asked On
2008-08-04 at 21:08:31ID23621110
Tags

Regular Expressions

Topic

Regular Expressions

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: Lolly-InkPosted on 2008-08-04 at 21:33:18ID: 22158162

Try this:

<html>
<script>
   var quote =
   [
      "[quote name='some name' date='some date']This is what is being quoted.[/quote]",
      "[quote name='some name' date='some date'][quote name='other name' date='other date']This is a nested quote.[/quote]this is the original quote.[/quote]",
      "[quote name='some name' date='some date']This is what is being quoted.[quote]",
   ];
   var r = /.*\[quote( name=('|").*('|"))?( date=('|").*('|"))?\].*\[\/quote\].*/i;
   for (var index = 0; index < quote.length; index++)
   {
      if (r.test(quote[index]))
      {
         alert(quote[index]);
      }
   }
</script>
</html>
                                              
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by: bobbit31Posted on 2008-08-05 at 15:16:26ID: 22165630

var r = /.*\[quote( name=('|").*('|"))?( date=('|").*('|"))?\].*\[\/quote\].*/i;

is close, however, the match data comes up wrong:

example:
[quote name='b' date='n']test1[quote name='c' date='m']test2[/quote]this is the original quote.[/quote]

$1 is:
name='b' date='n']test1[quote name='c' date='m'

Also, i need to know what is b/w the quote tags... so something like this?

var r = /.*\[quote( name=('|").*('|"))?( date=('|").*('|"))?\](.*)?\[\/quote\].*/i;

when i do that, $3 is:
b' date='n']test1[quote name='c' date='m'

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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