Updated the script with a dialog! First dialog I've ever made, I'd be thankful for comments :-)

he already did (although '\v' shouldn't be included there)Indeed! I quickly pasted something from wikipedia, but it was about POSIX character class, my bad, here is a quote from pcre.txt:
For compatibility with Perl, \s does not match the VT character (code
11). This makes it different from the the POSIX "space" class. The \s
characters are HT (9), LF (10), FF (12), CR (13), and space (32). If
"use locale;" is included in a Perl script, \s may match the VT charac-
ter. In PCRE, it never does.

I'm under jaytea's influence right about now. He's intoxicating and sort of elating my sense of understanding.

why not share your know-how in \s so everybody can learn from what you've learned?

he already did (although '\v' shouldn't be included there):

\s match a white space, same as [:space:] or [ \t\r\n\v\f] not just a $chr(32)

from there, you should be expected to realize that an IRC message may include \t and \f, therefore using \s in place of a regular space, when you mean to match a space and only a space, is incorrect.

Sarcasm aside, Wims, why not share your know-how in \s so everybody can learn from what you've learned? I've been a veteran in so many flaming posts to know better, and those were a waste of time really thinking back. Make you post worth your while and be remembered by.

Sure, but the question wasn't specific to that regex Dean.
Jethro: it was sarcastic, and the truth, i've read enough posts to know that
Note that you answered my post by saying the same mistake again "use \s to indicate a space", again if people want a space, they should use a space, there's no "I like to", everyone likes to use the proper code they need lol

in fact wims, the \s in that regex match, really means the space character, since on that match, it will only match a space... in fact, \s will match for a white character, but in that case there are no \t \n \v or \f

Wims, why wrote this:> you guys are too busy to show to hawkee's users who knows more than the other :)This sounds sarcastic. We're here to help as much as we can, not to show arrogant attitude toward one another. While some info may be misleading based on our learning, you're always welcome to come forward and correct it with a humble courtesy.

??
I don't feel uncomfortable with anything here and i use a space to indicate a space, \s isn't a space.
Someone asked what was \s in regex, someone else said it was the space character, this is simply not true and i'm correcting what the person said before anyone start believing it, you know, you guys are too busy to show to hawkee's users who knows more than the other :)

Didn't have the opportunity to log in yesterday.
Dean, updated with replace on "

Yes Wims, I like to leave an empty space as is, but for those of you who feel uncomfortable doing so, use \s to indicate a space. No harm, no foul.

\s match a white space, same as [:space:] or [ \t\r\n\v\f] not just a $chr(32)

You can use the look-behind or look-ahead assertions to demand a targeted match to be met (you may want to read up on those assertions to gain understanding of how they work) , while the

(?U)

,

(.+?)

and

/U

are telling regex to match as few strings as possible, being less greedy. Regex by design is greedy and case-sensitive.

sorry so, but i think we can improve regex a little bit more, and not use the (.*?) or /U
i just didnt go ahead with the code

by the way Kiddo96, you forgot to replace " to "

Before you called me a name, I was speaking in general, pointing out the sameness between (.*?) and /U.

in fact not Mr. idiot
he used the (.?) so i didnt change his code, and i kept it in the same as he wants
so instead use 2 (.?) i just used /U for all them

Kidd96, you can leave an actual space rather than use \s. What you have done for (.*?) is the same as using /U. Mr. Dean is just giving you an "interchangeable" alternative is all.

its the space character

its the character space

I think I'm following you, just wondering what \s means?

i just mixed both regex match, and i used ?: wich will not save the reference to the $regml so in this case, it will have only $regml(1) and not $regml(2) and $regml(3) as in your case
since you have used (.*?) so i used the /U modifier, which will make all the references not greedy

if you have any doubt ask me

$regex(%askreader,/<div\s(?:id="r\d+_a"|class="txt3 abstract")\s(?:class="txt3 abstract"|id="r\d+_a")>(.+)(?:<\/div>|<\/span>)|<span class="answers_ui_t\d+">(.+)<\/span>/U) {

Alright Dean I must say I like yours really much :) If you'd have time, could you please explain the regex pattern for me?. I'm still new to this and any kind of help is highly appreciated. Also added the "No result found" part to my script. Thank you for spotting that.

Interesting Dean. I'll have a look at your code tomorrow, right now my eyeballs are about to pop out lol. :)

since you have asked it Kiddo96, i think you can use one regex match instead 2

this is a simple example, and i added the $replace for " to "
and a check to check if the results match

alias ask {
  if $1 {
    if $sock(ask) {
      sockclose $v1
    }
    sockopen ask www.ask.com 80
    sockmark ask $1-
  }
  else {
    echo -a 04Error! Incorrect syntax.
  }
}
on *:sockopen:ask:{
  var %x = sockwrite -nt $sockname 
  %x GET /web?qsrc=1&o=0&l=dir&q= $+ $urlencode($sock($sockname).mark) HTTP/1.1
  %x Host: www.ask.com
  %x Connection: close
  %x
}
on *:sockread:ask:{
  var %askreader
  sockread %askreader
  if $regex(%askreader,/<div\s(?:id="r\d+_a"|class="txt3 abstract")\s(?:class="txt3 abstract"|id="r\d+_a")>(.+)(?:<\/div>|<\/span>)|<span class="answers_ui_t\d+">(.+)<\/span>/U) {
    echo -a 09 $+ $char_r($replace($regml(1),<b>,,</b>,,&quot;,"))
    sockclose $sockname
  }  
  if (*did not match* iswm %askreader) { echo -ag 09 Your search for $qt($sock($sockname).mark) did not match with any Web results. | sockclose $sockname 
  }
}
alias urlencode return $regsubex($1,/(\W)/gS,% $+ $base($asc(\1),10,16,2)))
alias char_r return $regsubex($1-,/&#(\d+);/g,$chr(\1))

i didnt tried another thing, but i think we can improve a lot
if i think in something i will post it

I'm glad to hear that, Jethro :)

The regex you've been given to is as good as it gets. No improvement needed.

I'd like to ask, could the regex pattern be improved anyhow?

how could you not?

I didn't realize hawkee was a drama show.

now, i by no means enjoy deans posts... but his post, while sounding serious, does have its humour...

• who is the most spammer in the world
  and
• who is the president of the idiots academy
  and it didnt return Jethro

he sounds shocked doesnt he... lmao...