Regex to match any single alphabet in string php

Question

I hate this code. What it does is take zipcode from html pages are verifies if the zipcode is USA or Canada.

<?php

$contents = file_get_contents('853755.html');

preg_match_all('/<td id="u_zipCode">(.*?)<\/td>/s', $contents, $matches);

$data = implode("|",$matches[0]);
$string = str_replace(' ', '', $data);


if(preg_match('/^[1-9][0-9]*$/',$string)){
    echo "Canada";
    }
    else
    {
        echo "USA";
        }

?>

I tried very had to search solution for it. But i can't find the solution. I even tried the regex that it should only contain Numbers not a single alphabet. But this doesn't seem to work in any way. The zipcode are given in this format,

USA: 97365
USA: 97365-97366
Canada: j8n7s1
Canada: N2L5Y6

Kindly help me with this solution. Thanks

@EmmaWatson: Check `DOMDocument`, it's the best way to get the DOM node you need, and its value — Elias Van Ootegem, Jul 24 '13 at 07:44
When you use `implode`, you'll get all the zip codes in one big string, like `97635|12345|N2L5Y6`. But your regexp is just looking for one zip code. — Barmar, Jul 24 '13 at 07:44
So what's the problem? Getting the content in the TD with the ID zipcode or validating the zipcode? — Gordon, Jul 24 '13 at 07:51

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 24 '13 at 07:49

Since there can only be one element with a particular ID, you don't need to use preg_match_all(), you can use preg_match().

preg_match('/<td id="u_zipCode">(.*?)<\/td>/s', $contents, $match);

Then you don't need to use implode(). The part that matches the capture group will be in element 1 of the match array.

$string = str_replace(' ', '', $match[1]);

if(preg_match('/^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$/',$string)) {
    echo "USA";
} else {
    echo "Canada";
}

Regex to match any single alphabet in string php

1 Answers1