Using Notepad++ to search/replace PHP code with regular expressions

Question

I would like to update some PHP code into the Joomla framework, replacing things like:

$myvar=$_POST["myvar"];

with

$myvar=JRequest::getVar('myvar');

This seems like it should be easy enough but I can't get it to work. How do I do that?

It's not clear what you want. The normal search/replace function doesn`t work for you? Do you want to batch-edit multiple files at once?
Yes, many files with $_POST and $_GET needing to be replaced, and $_SESSION too.
Normal search lets me replace the $_POST[" then I have to carefully do the "] - usually miss one or two.
What I have found: find: \$_POST["([\w\s]+)"]; replace: JRequest::getVar('\1',''); //$_POST["\1"]; The original code is preserved at the end of the line and rem'd out
Don, looks like you found your own answer :-). If you post it below as an answer, you can accept it (two days from now) and get this question marked as answered :-)

stema · Answer 1 · 2011-09-12 07:11:32Z

Search for

$_POST\["([^"]+)"\]

and replace with

JRequest::getVar('\1')

\["([^"]+)"\] To match the square brackets literally, they need to be escaped using a backslash.

[^"] means every character, but not a ".

([^"]+) the round brackets put the found stuff into a capturing group, this could then be retrieved with \1 (used in the replacement)

1 Answer