PHP + Regex expressions - php

Question

Below are 2 pager alert messages and I have a sore head of a time trying to extract the address and job details of the second message into a php string using Regex...
Here are 2 example messages:
0571040 15:45:21 30-04-12 ##ALERT F546356345 THEB8 STRUC1 SMELL OF SMOKE AND ALARM OPERATING 900 SOME ROAD SOMESUBURB /CROSSSTREET1 RD //CROSSTREET2 AV M 99 A1 (429085) CTHEB CBOROS PT28 [THEB]
0571040 15:45:21 30-04-12 ##ALERT F546356345 THEB8 STRUC1 SMELL OF SMOKE AND ALARM OPERATING 4 / 900 SOME ROAD SOMESUBURB /CROSSSTREET1 RD //CROSSTREET2 AV M 99 A1 (429085) CTHEB CBOROS PT28 [THEB]
You will note the second address has 4 / 900 at the start or it could say Unit 4 / 900... and this is where my issue starts! The addresses come in different formats, I have "normal" numbered addresses and "Corner Of" addresses sorted elsewhere but this address one with no 4 at 900 someroad has me stumped. The extra / has screwed my expression up... Help! :)
In my expression I use the first slash as the first cross street but in the second case above the first / is now a part of the address... Below is what I have so far:
function get_string_between2($string, $start, $end){
$string = " ".$string;
$ini = strpos($string,$start);
if ($ini == 0) return "";
$ini += strlen($start);
$len = strpos($string,$end,$ini) - $ini;
return substr($string,$ini,$len);
}
$fullstring = "$rawPage";
if ( strpos($fullstring, ' STRUC1 ')!== false )
{
$parsed = get_string_between2($fullstring, "STRUC1", "/");
}
$input = "$parsed";
preg_match('/([^0-9]+)(.*)/', $input, $matches);
$jobdet = "$matches[1]";
$jobadd = "$matches[2]";
Now this works fine for the top message and I get this as the result:
$jobdet = SMELL OF SMOKE AND ALARM OPERATING
$jobadd = 900 SOME ROAD SOMESUBURB
$firstcrossstreet = /CROSSSTREET1 RD
$secondcrossstreet = //CROSSSTREET2 AV
For the second message it's all wrong with this the result:
$jobdet = SMELL OF SMOKE AND ALARM OPERATING
$jobadd = 4
$firstcrossstreet = / 900 SOME ROAD SOMESUBURB /CROSSSTREET1 RD
$secondcrossstreet = //CROSSSTREET2 AV
I know it's the / causing it but how can I make a expression that handles either case?

Answer 1

With regular expressions, you must escape the forward slash, as these are used as part of the expression. A typical expression looks as follows:
/expression/modifiers
expression is your regex, and modifiers change the execution and result type. eg:
/<[^>]+>/g
This should return all HTML tags in a string. The regex is <[^>]+> and it is between two forward slashes. Therefore you escape the forward slashes - / - to achieve a literal string forward slash.