... so I find the solution for PCRE under Linux. Download the source code.
Compile it with --with-pcre-regexmake parameter. It's working just fine
with PHP 4.0.1pl2. One more time I learned: the safest (and the fastest)
way is build your own code from the source. :-)

Please add a link from the ordinary regular expressions to these. Otherwise
they are easy to miss, when looking for regex functions, due the
abreviation.

Ever wondered how to use a function within a PCRE?  here's how:

$content = preg_replace("/\*(\w+)\*/e",
"lookupImageCode($1)", $content);

This code replaces all instances of *text*, where text is a code for an
image, with the output of function lookupImageCode().  The /e and the
quotes around the function name and arguments are essential to make this
work :-)

I use this on one of my websites to query a database and cross-reference
image filenames with special codes input by press release writers in our
client's company.  They type the code of an image (displayed in a
catalogue onscreen on the site's backend) and this little wonder of code
changes it to an img src tag on the fly as the page is loaded.

Enjoy!

p.s.  thanks to the guys on #php who helped sort this out at 4am in the
morning my time! (donut, jfk, cardinal)  Contact me if you like.

There is some really good/simple documentation of Perl regular expressions
at 

If you're venturing into new regular expression territory with a lack of
useful examples then it would pay to get familiar with this page:

Here's a translation of Friedl's email address matching regexp:



Friedl's perl original is available here:

This is the easiest tutorial for regular expressions I have found yet.
Beginners should start here.
This tutorial is originally written for Jscript, but I think everything
applies to PHP.
(I had to chop the following url into small pieces to be able to post it
here)



script56/html/js56reconRegularExpressions.asp