**Warning: Note that English is not restricted to just A-Z.**

Try [this][1] to remove everything except a-z, A-Z and 0-9:

    $result = preg_replace(&quot;/[^a-zA-Z0-9]+/&quot;, &quot;&quot;, $s);

If your definition of alphanumeric includes letters in foreign languages and obsolete scripts then you will need to use the Unicode character classes.

Try [this][2] to leave only A-Z:

    $result = preg_replace(&quot;/[^A-Z]+/&quot;, &quot;&quot;, $s);

The reason for the warning is that words like r&#233;sum&#233; contains the letter `&#233;` that won&#39;t be matched by this. If you want to match a specific list of letters adjust the regular expression to include those letters. If you want to match all letters, use the appropriate character classes as mentioned in the comments.


[1]: http://ideone.com/hzXKj
[2]: http://ideone.com/OHfek

Rather than `preg_replace`, you could always use [PHP&#39;s filter functions][1] using the `filter_var()` function with `FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING`.


  [1]: http://www.php.net/manual/en/filter.filters.sanitize.php

Instead of going to views.py, I want it to go to to a template, robots.txt.

How do I go straight to template, in Django&#39;s urls.py?

I know it&#39;s possible in PHP to have &quot;variable&quot; variables.  For example,

&lt;!-- language: lang-php --&gt;

    $x = &quot;variable&quot;;
    $$x = &quot;Hello, World!&quot;;
    echo $variable; // Displays &quot;Hello, World!&quot;

Is it possible to refer to a variable by its name as a string in JavaScript? How would it be done?






&quot;Variable&quot; variables in JavaScript

I&#39;m looking for a php function that will take an input string and return a sanitized version of it by stripping away all special characters leaving only alpha-numeric.

I need a second function that does the same but only returns alphabetic characters A-Z.

Any help much appreciated.

Function to return only alpha-numeric characters from string?

I'm looking for a php function that will take an input string and return a sanitized version of it by stripping away all special characters leaving only alpha-numeric.
I need a second function that does the same but only returns alphabetic characters A-Z.
Any help much appreciated.

Ok, this might be a very noob question, but I find that PHP Documentation on that and several Internet Searches hasn&#39;t give me any idea about that.

&gt; When should I use try-catch blocks to improve my application?

I read someone saying that we should use try-catch blocks only to prevent fatal errors.
I read someone else saying that we should use it only on unexpected errors (wait what? unexpected? if they are unexpected errors how could I prevent them with try-catch? should I put all my application code inside a try block?).
Others simply say that try-catch blocks should be used everywhere because they can be also extended (extending the Exception class).
Finally someone says that PHP try-catch block are totally useless because they are very bad implemented. (On this I found a nice SO question about performance).

It seems to me that this topic is very strange and confused. Could someone lights me up?



When to use Try Catch blocks

I am looking to set curl to use a proxy server. The url is provided by an html form, which has not been a problem. Without the proxy it works fine. I have found code on this and other sites, but they do not work. Any help in finding the correct solution would be much appreciated. I feel that the bellow are close, but that I am missing something. Thank You.

The bellow code I adapted from here http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum88/10572.htm but it returns an error message about a missing T_VARIABLE on line 12.

    &lt;?
    
    $url = &#39;$_POST[1]&#39;;
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, &#39;66.96.200.39:80&#39;);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST,&#39;GET&#39;);
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1)
    curl_exec ($ch); 
    $curl_info = curl_getinfo($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    echo &#39;&lt;br /&gt;&#39;;
    print_r($curl_info);
    ?&gt;

The bellow is from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4802816/curl-through-proxy-returns-no-content

    &lt;?
    
    $proxy = &quot;66.96.200.39:80&quot;;
    $proxy = explode(&#39;:&#39;, $proxy);
    $url = &quot;$_POST[1]&quot;;
    
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy[0]);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYPORT, $proxy[1]);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
    
    $exec = curl_exec($ch);
    
    echo curl_error($ch);
    print_r(curl_getinfo($ch));
    echo $exec;
    ?&gt;


is currently live on pelican-cement.com but also does not work.

UPDATE:
Thank you for all your help, I made the above changes. Now it only returns a blank screen.

    &lt;?
    
    $url = $_POST[&#39;1&#39;];
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, &#39;66.96.200.39:80&#39;);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST,&#39;GET&#39;);
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
    curl_exec ($ch); 
    $curl_scraped_page = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    
    echo $curl_scraped_page;
    ?&gt; 


How to use CURL via a proxy?

I have a timestamp stored in a session (1299446702).

How can I convert that to a readable date/time in PHP? I have tried srttotime, etc. to no avail.


Convert timestamp to readable date/time PHP

I have some troubles with an array. I have one array that I want to modify like below. I want to remove element (elements) of it by index and then re-index array. Is it possible?

    $foo = array(

    	&#39;whatever&#39;, // [0]
    	&#39;foo&#39;, // [1]
    	&#39;bar&#39; // [2]

    );

    $foo2 = array(

    	&#39;foo&#39;, // [0], before [1]
    	&#39;bar&#39; // [1], before [2]

    );

How to Remove Array Element and Then Re-Index Array?

When I use `curl` via `POST` and set `CURLOPT_POSTFIELD` do I have to `urlencode` or any special format?

for example: If I want to post 2 fields, first and last:

    first=John&amp;last=Smith

what is the exact code/format that should be used with curl?

    $ch=curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
    $reply=curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

curl POST format for CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS

In R, is there a better/simpler way than the following of finding the location of the last dot in a string?

    x &lt;- &quot;hello.world.123.456&quot;
    g &lt;- gregexpr(&quot;.&quot;, x, fixed=TRUE)
    loc &lt;- g[[1]]
    loc[length(loc)]  # returns 16

This finds all the dots in the string and then returns the last one, but it seems rather clumsy. I tried using regular expressions, but didn&#39;t get very far.


R: Find the last dot in a string

I need to split a String into an array of single character Strings.

Eg, splitting &quot;cat&quot; would give the array &quot;c&quot;, &quot;a&quot;, &quot;t&quot;

Split string into array of character strings

I&#39;m trying to match the `From` line all the way to the end of the `Subject` line in the following:

    ....
    From: XXXXXX 
    Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 10:52:42 -0800 
    To: XXXXXXX
    Subject: XXXXXXX
    ....

So far I have:

    /From:.*Date:.*To:.*Subject/m

But that doesn&#39;t match to the end of the subject line. I tried adding `$` but that had no effect.

Regex, how to match multiple lines?

I&#39;m trying to create a regex for extracting singers, lyricists. I was wondering how to make lyricists search optional.

Sample Multiline String:

    Fireworks Singer: Katy Perry
    Vogue Singers: Madonna, Karen Lyricist: Madonna

Regex: `/Singers?:(.\*)\s?Lyricists?:(.\*)/`

This matches the second line correctly and extracts `Singers(Madonna, Karen)` and `Lyricists(Madonna)`

But it does not work with the first line, when there are no Lyricists. 

How do I make Lyricists search optional?

regex optional word match

I am trying to implement the following regex search found on [golfscript syntax page][1].

    var ptrn = /[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*|&#39;(?:\\.|[^&#39;])*&#39;?|&quot;(?:\\.|[^&quot;])*&quot;?|-?[0-9]+|#[^\n\r]*|./mg;
    input = ptrn.exec(input);

Input is only ever the first match of the regexp. for example:
`&quot;hello&quot; &quot;world&quot;` should return `[&quot;hello&quot;, &quot;world&quot;]` but it only returns `[&quot;hello&quot;]`.

  [1]: http://www.golfscript.com/golfscript/syntax.html

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Scott B	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Php	Mark Byers	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Php	Mark Baker	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Function to return only alpha-numeric characters from string?

Php Problem Overview

Php Solutions

Solution 1 - Php

Solution 2 - Php

"Variable" variables in JavaScript

How do I go straight to template, in Django's urls.py?

Attributions