Not sure if this regular expression is correct

[FiRe]

I am trying to extract a number followed by the word "metres" in a string. Some have a space between the number and word and some dont. Here is my expression:

preg_match("/([0-9]*)(\s?)metres/is", $desc, $m)

Not sure this is quite working though. It should match:

5 metres
5metres
500 metres
500metres

Any ideas?

[Little_G]

Hi,

This works for me,

/([0-9]+)\\s?metres/i

.
I had to double escape the s, not sure why but it works.

Andrew

[mehh]

I had to double escape the s, not sure why but it works.

I think its because of double quotes (") so the '\s' get translated to just 's' before the regex is evaluated. So the regex above can be used or the double quotes can be switched for single.

[henry0]

if you are always looking for a few "metres"
then you could be on the right track
but did you consider that the non plural
for example .75 or 1 "metre" does not have an "s"

[g1smd]

Changing s to s? will fix that

[jkovar]

preg_match('#(\d+)\s*metres?#si', $str, $m);