PHP Regular expression for North/South/East/West

Hey there,

I had a similar requirement to validate directions in one of my PHP projects, and I found a solution that might work for you. You can try using the word boundaries `\b` in your regular expression pattern.

So, instead of `/[North|South|East|West]/`, you can modify it to `/\b(North|South|East|West)\b/`. This will ensure that the regular expression only matches the complete words "North", "South", "East", or "West" and not any individual characters within those words.

I tested this approach in my project, and it worked perfectly to validate the directions. Give it a try, and let me know if it helps in your case.

Good luck with your project!

Greetings fellow developers!

I recently had a similar situation where I needed to validate direction inputs in PHP. While exploring different approaches, I stumbled upon a handy function called `preg_match` which worked wonders for me.

Here's the code snippet that may assist you:

php
$inputDirection = "West";



if (preg_match('/^(North|South|East|West)$/', $inputDirection)) {

    // Valid direction, you can proceed with your logic here

} else {

    // Invalid direction, handle the error accordingly

}

Hello everyone,

I encountered a similar scenario not too long ago while developing a PHP application that required direction validation. After some trial and error, I found a different approach that may be worth considering.

Instead of using a regular expression, I utilized the `in_array` function combined with an array of valid direction values. Here's the code snippet I used:

php
$inputDirection = "South";

$validDirections = array("North", "South", "East", "West");



if (in_array($inputDirection, $validDirections)) {

    // Valid direction, you can proceed with your logic here

} else {

    // Invalid direction, handle the error accordingly

}

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