how would I use regex to match a word, let's say "the" but only if it's not part of a link in any shape or form so
<a href="NOT IF IT'S IN HERE">AND NOT IF IT'S IN HERE</a>

I'd suggest looking for <a >...</a> and replacing that whole thing with a blank statement, instead of trying to find the text out side of it.

no you don't understand, look at the example below

I have the following html



now I want it to match the word "the" in "click the link" but not in the "thesite.com" or "the best site"

that's what I'm trying to do.

You could try doing:


GAH.... IPB is breaking the code...

OOoo..k...

Well let's try this.. since IPB is breaking it..

Hmm.. ok.. I guess not.. just escape the / of the </a> in my post above and if you're using preg_match("/".$postabove."/i", $linetoberegexed, $match); it's $match[2];

That doesn't look like it'd work though because what if I had a "the" before the closing of the first <a>, that one would not be matched