preg_match() delimiter error (slightly different)

Question

having a problem with a delimiter. I'm a noob with PHP, so I'm sorry if this is a really simple fix. I was using eregi() before, but I checked on here for a "deprecated" error, and I found out that I had to use preg_match. Anyways, here's the error:

Warning: preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash in /home/legitstr/public_html/members/includes/functions.php on line 4

And here's my code: (I've checked on other threads before, but no one seems to have similar code to mine)

$file = basename(__FILE__);
if(preg_match($file,$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
die("Sorry but you cannot access this file directly for security reasons.");

Please help me out, and thank you!

Answer 1

try:

$file = basename(__FILE__);
if(false !== strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], $file)) {
die("Sorry but you cannot access this file directly for security reasons.");

strpos()

or

stripos()

for case insensitive match, should be a better match for what you seem to be doing

Answer 2

You need to surround your regex with delimiters - usually something like /myregex/

If you leave off the delimiters you get this error. You could try

if(preg_match($file,"|".$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']."|")) {

Since | is a legitimate delimiter, and may not be used in a legal URL

Having said that - regex is a powerful tool, and if you are looking for a verbatim match it may be overkill. Furthermore, a URL could have all kinds of characters in it that have special meaning in regex - which would actually cause a false match. For example, . in a regex means "any character", so apple.com will match applescom which is probably not what you want.