Does PHP or MySQL a problem with -in-

[UKSBD]

My directory has sections for Business Categories in Postal Town.

I've just noticed /Category-in-Henley-in-Arden/ doesn't work.

On looking in to this I've discovered other towns that have -in- in them don't work either
Moreton-in-Marsh, Barrow-in-Furness, Kirkby-in-Furness (fortunately, not many)

Towns with -on-, -upon-, -under- all work fine.

Is there something in PHP or MySQL that could be effecting -in- ?

 

[WebDesires]

Any sort of category checking should work one of 2 ways, by a unique ID is the best approach, or if you have a less professional programmer you would be dealing with exact string searches.

However neither would cause any trouble with -in-, so the only thing that can be wrong is that either an ID is not referenced correctly, or if your script is using exact string then that string is not correct.

 

[Faevilangel]

nothing wrong with - in urls in php, WordPress and many other scripts used them fine (even this websites forum software)

Your issue is likely with the htaccess redirect somewhere

 

[UKSBD]

nothing wrong with - in urls in php, WordPress and many other scripts used them fine (even this websites forum software)

Your issue is likely with the htaccess redirect somewhere

Yes, it looks like a rewrite problem, it works without the redirect.

This is what I have as the Rewrite
RewriteRule ^intown/(.*)-in-(.*)\/$ category-town.php?strBusinessCatergory=$1&strTown=$2

This works for any town except the ones with -in- in their name

https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/intown/Copywriters-in-Bristol/ works
https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/intown/Copywriters-in-Henley-in-Arden/ doesn't work

Any idea why the -in- in the town is causing this?

 

[Faevilangel]

Edited:

I reread your comment and the issue is far harder, I am guessing the regex is breaking because of the -in- in the first part and the last part of the url, my regex sucks so you are better off asking on stackoverflow.com as you will likely need to build it into 2 parts and then join them.

 

[UKSBD]

Trouble with posting on stackoverflow is, how do I phrase the question

 

[pjperez]

Yes, it looks like a rewrite problem, it works without the redirect.

This is what I have as the Rewrite
RewriteRule ^intown/(.*)-in-(.*)\/$ category-town.php?strBusinessCatergory=$1&strTown=$2

This works for any town except the ones with -in- in their name

https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/intown/Copywriters-in-Bristol/ works
https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/intown/Copywriters-in-Henley-in-Arden/ doesn't work

Any idea why the -in- in the town is causing this?

You have two variables: $1 which is the business category and $2 which is the town. My understanding is that your application gets a request like /Copywriters-in-Bristol/ and then you capture whatever is before -in- as the category ($1) and whatever is after -in- as the town. However, if you have the request /Copywriters-in-Henley-in-Arden/ your application might be looking for Copywriters ($1) in Arden ($2) or "Copywriters-in-Henley" as category and again Arden as the city.

As there's a redirect and I'm guessing some sort of DB query for the request, you should be able to review your Apache's error logs and/or logs on your DB to see what's the application actually doing.

Without that and/or a code review it's difficult to tell.

The regex looks good... I'm not 100% sure about the not escaped / after intown, but if it works for you it must be ok.

 

[UKSBD]

It doesn't appear to be the -in- between the 2 variables that is causing the problem.
I created a version just using - between them and it's still the same.

It seems to be because the 2nd variable has -in- in it.
It may be confused and think there are 3 variables and not 2
Copywriters in Henley in Arden
instead of Copywriters in Henley-in-Arden

It only does it with towns that have -in- in them, -on-, -upon-, -under- all work fine.

 

[pjperez]

I created a version just using - between them and it's still the same.

A version of the regex? or a request like Copywriters-Henley-in-Arden?

By the way, I'm assuming the regex shown above is for Apache and not in your application, right? Do you parse this anywhere else in your code?

 

[UKSBD]

A version of the regex? or a request like Copywriters-Henley-in-Arden?

By the way, I'm assuming the regex shown above is for Apache and not in your application, right? Do you parse this anywhere else in your code?

A request.
https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/catintown/Copywriters-Bristol/ works
with Henley-in-Arden it doesn't

This is the file without the rewrite
https://www.uksmallbusinessdirector...Catergory=Copywriters&strTown=Henley-in-Arden

As you can see the -in- doesn't cause a problem there, only with the rewrite.

 

[pjperez]

So here's how that regex matches for your general case:

Here's how it matches for any other -xn- e.g. -on-:

Finally, here comes your edge case, where the regex takes Copywriters-in-Henley for $1 and Arden for $2:

This is because (.*) is considered greedy, so it matches as many characters as possible. As we have two occurrences of -in-, the regex will push the match to the second -in- so the initial (.*) gets as many characters as possible.

I haven't found a solution, but what we want here is to always match on the first -in- and not on the second.

 

[pjperez]

Ok, I think I've got it:

Use this regex instead: ^intown\/([^-]+)-in-(.*)\/

Start with intown/
Followed by anything but -, as many times as possible (i.e. until you find a dash -)
Then -in-
Then anything until a slash /

 

[pjperez]

By the way, a wise person said once: If you have a problem and want to use regex to solve it, then you have two problems.

Hope the above helped!

 

[UKSBD]

in my test I changed -in- to -
As - is in Henley-in-Arden too could that be why it didn't work?

I'll try a unique divider

 

[pjperez]

in my test I changed -in- to -
As - is in Henley-in-Arden too could that be why it didn't work?

I'll try a unique divider

Yes. It would have got Copywriters-Henley for $1 as it would match the -in- on Henley-in-Arden. Changing the regex to the one I suggested above should fix the issue.

 

[UKSBD]

Yes. It would have gotten Copywriters-Henley for $1 as it would match the -in- on Henley-in-Arden. Changing the regex to the one I suggested above should fix the issue.

https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/intown/Copywriters-in-Henley-in-Arden/

 

[pjperez]

https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/intown/Copywriters-in-Henley-in-Arden/

Yay!

 

[UKSBD]

Yes. It would have got Copywriters-Henley for $1 as it would match the -in- on Henley-in-Arden. Changing the regex to the one I suggested above should fix the issue.

Thanks, if you want a free upgraded listing in my directory drop me a PM and I'll give you a link to the registration page

 

[UKSBD]

Just realised that creates another problem.

I have a couple of hyphenated categories too.
T-Shirts

which means T-Shirts-in-Town will stop working

 

[UKSBD]

looks like (.*?) may be the solution (stops it being greedy)
will update after I have tested.

 

[UKSBD]

looks like (.*?) works

Once you gave me the terminology I knew what to search for.

I searched for "stop regex greedy" and found a solution.
Thanks again

 

[pjperez]

looks like (.*?) works

Once you gave me the terminology I knew what to search for.

I searched for "stop regex greedy" and found a solution.
Thanks again

Nice one! I wasn't sure how to fix this one