preg_match -ing from lines in a .txt file (with spaces and brackets!)

Question

So I have got this far on my own but It looks like I have found the limit of my PHP knowledge (which isn\'t very much at all!). This script is for filtering filenames (game roms

Answer 1

Replace the fourth line in the code you supplied with

$manualRemovePattern = "/(?:" . implode("|", array_map(function($i) {
    return preg_quote(trim($i), "/");
}, explode(PHP_EOL, $file))) . ')/';

The main idea is:

• Split the file contents you obtained into lines with explode(PHP_EOL, $file)
• Then you need to iterate over the array and modify each item in the array (which can be done with array_map)
• Modifying the array items involves adding escaping \ before any special regex metacharacter and a regex delimiter chosen by you (in this case, /), and this is done with preg_quote(trim($i), "/")
• Note I remove any leading/trailing spaces with trim from the array items - just in case.

To match them as whole words, use word boundaries:

$manualRemovePattern = '/\b(?:' . implode('|', array_map(function($i) {
    return preg_quote(trim($i), '/');
}, explode(PHP_EOL, $file))) . ')\b/';

To match them as whole strings, use ^/$ anchors:

$manualRemovePattern = '/^(?:' . implode('|', array_map(function($i) {
    return preg_quote(trim($i), '/');
}, explode(PHP_EOL, $file))) . ')$/';