正则表达式-从固定模式中排除符号

Question

I need a help from some regular expression expert.

I have a script which give a fixed list of pattern. With very simple regular expression i search for pattern existence in target text. For example:

/.*TFT.*/
/.*LCD.*/
/.*ANTI-GLARE.*/

Those strings - TFT,LCD,ANTI-GLARE are fixed - I can't modify them. Well, the problem is in ANTI-GLARE - that dash will cause not to match AntiGlare. I know that id I make regex like this:

/.*ANTI-?GLARE.*/

this will match both variants, but i can't modify that string. My question is: Is there another way to make symbol optional, than exclamation mark in pattern?

EDIT - clearance

After some answers and hints, i'll try to give more specific description of my problem. I have a strings in table:

Anti Glare

TFT
AntiGlare
LCD

Via XML I receive new model which description is like:

Anti-Glare

i need to ensure - did i have a entry with "Anti Glare" like description. I can not change that Anti-Glare received, because there a lot of strings - vary in wide range - it's impossible to build logical group or any like this in regex. it's build with php script like:

$rexp="/.*~.*/i"; 

• where ~ is replaced with that string.

  $rexp=str_replace('~',$rexp,$cond);

• where $cond holds current string received

  Operator can change any part outside that ~, but can not in ~ content - there will be a thousands of them

Answer 1

You're using php, so we can assume you've got something like an array with every strings accepted.

Here is a way to do what you want, if only dash bother you :

<?php

$words = array('TFT', 'LCD', 'ANTI-GLARE');
$pattern = '/(' . str_replace('-', '-?', implode($words, '|')) . ')/i';

?>

This will generate you the pattern /(TFT|LCD|ANTI-?GLARE)/i , which will fit your needs .

EDIT

As mentioned in comments, you're receiving every possible strings : TFT;LCD;AntiGlare;Anti-Glare;Anti Glare . You then just have to concatenate them with a pipe (the OR operator in regex) and wrap he whole block with parenthesis :

$words = array('TFT', 'LCD', 'AntiGlare', 'Anti-Glare', 'Anti Glare');
$pattern = '/(' . implode($words, '|') . ')/i';

This will generate you the pattern /(TFT|LCD|AntiGlare|Anti-Glare|Anti Glare)/i

Answer 2

Well, you can not modify those regex, but I suppose you can modify the text. So, you can do this.

Use regex /antiglare/ with case insensitive flag and then replace them with ANTI-GLARE . I hope this will work for you. I can't give you code, as I do not myself know php.