Quoting regular expression characters

[bhamp0]

Hi!

For other functions I won't publish for the moment, I thought a particular function is missing: the possibility to quote special characters used in regular expression (an equivalent to preg_quote for those knowing PHP).

Here is mine:

Func _StringRegExpQuote($str)
    ; WARNING: "\" needs to be put first as this is the escaping character for the others
    Dim $matchingCharacters[20] = ["\", ".", ":", "-", "|", "(", ")", "{", "}", "<", ">", "[", "]", "*", "+", "=", "?", "!", "^", "$"]
    
    For $matchingCharacter In $matchingCharacters
        $str = StringRegExpReplace($str, "\" & $matchingCharacter, "\\\" & $matchingCharacter)
    Next
    
    Return $str
EndFunc

Any comments / optimization?

[bhamp0]

Well, already done by guinness in another post... and much more elegant

'?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

[guinness]

... and much more elegant

Thanks

[guinness]

As to how your version could be improved with what you posted here...

ConsoleWrite(_StringRegExpQuote('This string contains the plus sign +, a bracket ( and a dot. These will be escaped with this function.') & @CRLF)
ConsoleWrite(_StringRegExpQuote('"KEYWORDS" => array(') & @CRLF)

Func _StringRegExpQuote($sString)
    Local $aEscChrs[20] = ['\', '.', ':', '-', '|', '(', ')', '{', '}', '<', '>', '[', ']', '*', '+', '=', '?', '!', '^', '$']
    For $i = 0 To UBound($aEscChrs) - 1
        $sString = StringReplace($sString, $aEscChrs[$i], '\' & $aEscChrs[$i])
    Next
    Return $sString
EndFunc   ;==>_StringRegExpQuote