diff --git a/lib/filterlib.php b/lib/filterlib.php
index 8e10caa7f53..94c410c2c94 100644
--- a/lib/filterlib.php
+++ b/lib/filterlib.php
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ function filter_phrases ($text, &$link_array, $ignoretagsopen=NULL, $ignoretagsc
 /// Unless specified otherwise, we will not replace within <a></a> tags
     if ( $ignoretagsopen === NULL ) {
         //$ignoretagsopen  = array('<a(.+?)>');
-        $ignoretagsopen  = array('<a[^>]+?>');
+        $ignoretagsopen  = array('<a\s[^>]+?>');
         $ignoretagsclose = array('</a>');
     }
     
diff --git a/mod/glossary/lib.php b/mod/glossary/lib.php
index b070b0fd191..aa9d3eb2057 100644
--- a/mod/glossary/lib.php
+++ b/mod/glossary/lib.php
@@ -684,7 +684,7 @@ function glossary_print_entry_definition($entry) {
 
 
     //Extract <a>..><a> tags from definition
-    preg_match_all('/<a[^>]+?>(.*?)<\/a>/is',$definition,$list_of_a);
+    preg_match_all('/<a\s[^>]+?>(.*?)<\/a>/is',$definition,$list_of_a);
 
     //Save them into links array to use them later
     foreach (array_unique($list_of_a[0]) as $key=>$value) {