John Davidson

Message:

Is there a PHP function that can escape RegEx patterns to prevent them from being applied when used inside another RegEx pattern?

I am looking for something along the lines of the C# Regex.Escape() function.

---

My Answer:
function `preg_quote()` in PHP. This function can be used to escape any characters that have special meaning in regular expressions, preventing them from being interpreted as such when used inside another regular expression pattern.

Here's an example of how you can use `preg_quote()`:

php
$pattern = '/[a-z]+/';
$escaped_pattern = preg_quote($pattern, '/');
echo $escaped_pattern; // Output: /\\[a\\-z\\]+/


In this example, the `preg_quote()` function is used to escape the special characters `[`, `]`, and `+` in the original pattern, preventing them from being interpreted as regular expression syntax when used inside another pattern.