what does \[\[[a-zA-Z]*\]\] mean?

[HandersonVA]

REReplace(variables.test, "\[\[[a-zA-Z]*\]\]", "", "ALL")>
can anyone tell me what \[\[[a-zA-Z]*\]\] is? what values will be converted to ""? thanks

[Kronin555]

\[\[[a-zA-Z]*\]\] is a regular expression.

\[\[ matches "[["
[a-zA-Z]* matches zero or more alpha characters, both upper and lowercase
\]\] matches "]]"

Therefore, the purpose of this regular expression is to remove any instances of [[something]] or [[anything]] or [[]]

[HandersonVA]

btw how do you know \[\[ matches "[["?
is there any chart which matches which for a regular expression? thanks

[paross1]

You might try Googling regular expressions.....

Regular-Expressions.info

Regular Expression HOWTO

etc. etc.

Phil

[Kronin555 · Accepted solution]

Normally, [ and ] are special characters in regular expressions. \ escapes them so that they equate to a [ or ] character, rather than a special character.

[Newsgroup_User]

Don't forget the native CF docs on the subject:

http://livedocs.macromedia.com/coldfusion/7/htmldocs/00000981.htm

--
Adam