Replace one character with another

5 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: August 30, 2009   (RSS)

By gkornbluth - August 29, 2009

Well, I'm stumped again.

I'm trying to replace any occurrence of a dash (-) in the contents of a field with a space and then print the field contents (with the spaces) and I've not been able to get it to work.

I'd ultimately like to replace any occurrence of a dash or an underscore with spaces.

Here's what I've tried to use so far based on some things that I found in the forum.

<?php foreach ($portfolio_imagesRecords as $record): ?>

<?PHP $record['group_code'] = preg_replace("/^\s*-/i", "&nbsp;", $record['group_code'] ); ?>

<?php echo $record['group_code'] ?>

<?php break ?>

<?php endforeach; ?>

Anyone who can point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Jerry Kornbluth
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Re: [gkornbluth] Replace one character with another

By Chris - August 29, 2009

Hi Jerry,

Here's the code you're looking for:

$record['group_code'] = preg_replace("/[-_]/", "&nbsp;", $record['group_code'] );

/[-_]/ means "match a single character in the set [-_]". preg_replace() will repeat the match as many times as it can.

/^\s*-/i means "match from the start of the string, allowing any number of whitespace chatacters (i.e. tabs, spaces, newlines), then a single - character, without respect to case".

Regular expressions can be very tricky.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any more questions or comments! :)
All the best,
Chris

Re: [chris] Replace one character with another

By gkornbluth - August 29, 2009 - edited: August 29, 2009

It worked perfectly (what did I expect). And tricky is definitely the word of the day.

Thanks!!!

And thanks for the explanation as well.

So if I wanted to replaced any dashes or underscores with spaces as well, would I add the entire snippet again, including the comma?

"/[__]/", "/[-_]/",

Also, how would I replace a dash with a space, and an underscore with a star (just to demonstrate the replacement of 2 (or more) characters with other specific characters?

Thanks again, and again, and....

Jerry
The first CMS Builder reference book is now available on-line!







Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php

Re: [gkornbluth] Replace one character with another

By Chris - August 29, 2009

Hi gkornbluth,

The first argument (before the comma) is the pattern to match; the second argument is what the match should be replaced with.

$record['group_code'] = preg_replace("/-/", "&nbsp;", $record['group_code'] );

The above code will replace any occurrence of a dash ("-") in the string with "&nbsp;".

$record['group_code'] = preg_replace("/[-_]/", "&nbsp;", $record['group_code'] );

The above code will replace any occurrence of either a dash ("-") or an underscore ("_") in the string with "&nbsp;".

$record['group_code'] = preg_replace("/-/", " ", $record['group_code'] );
$record['group_code'] = preg_replace("/_/", "*", $record['group_code'] );

The above code will replace any occurrence of a dash ("-") in the string with a space (" "). Then it will replace any occurrence of an underscore ("_") with an asterisk ("*").

Hope this helps! You might want to read a chapter or two on regular expressions if you want to learn how this stuff all works. :)
All the best,
Chris