How to replace a string using regex

Question

string = "(KEY)anything (KEY)anything (A)anything (KEY)anything";

result should be

string = "<p>anything</p> <p>anything</p> (A)anything <p>anything</p>";

What have you tried? Because as it is now, it's as if you're asking us to write your code for you. — Etienne de Martel, Jan 04 '11 at 21:56
Is the original string really html? If so, please consider an html parser. — moinudin, Jan 04 '11 at 21:57
How can you tell that one paragraph is over? Is it always just one word? Is it until the next `(KEY)`? Is it something else? — Tim Pietzcker, Jan 04 '11 at 21:58

Tim Pietzcker · Answer 1 · 2011-01-04T22:15:12.233

2

$result = preg_replace('/\(KEY\)(\w+)/', '<p>\1</p>', $subject);

will work on your example.

If anything can be more than one word and is defined as "anything after (KEY) and before the next opening parenthesis", then you can use

$result = preg_replace('/\(KEY\)([^(]+)/', '<p>\1</p>', $subject);

edited Jan 04 '11 at 22:15

answered Jan 04 '11 at 21:59

Tim Pietzcker

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 04 '11 at 22:05

1

Replace $KEY$(\w+) with <p>$1</p>, or whatever the equivalent php notation is.

This assumes that the boundaries are word boundaries (anything other than 0-9A-Za-z_).

edited Jan 04 '11 at 22:05

Tim Pietzcker

answered Jan 04 '11 at 21:58

OrangeDog

You should put \$KEY\$(\w+) – faressoft Jan 04 '11 at 22:01
@faressoft - `)` does not require escaping unless preceded by an unescaped `(`. Reducing the number of \ is good, especially when they need double-escaping in string literals. – OrangeDog Jan 04 '11 at 23:00
This is not generally true. Python, for example, will complain about an unbalanced parenthesis. – Tim Pietzcker Jan 05 '11 at 08:38
@Tim Pietzcker - Thanks for the info. I assumed php would use PCRE. – OrangeDog Jan 05 '11 at 10:05

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

1

If you don't know how to start, here is an excellent tutorial on regular expressions:
Learning Regular Expressions

edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

Community

answered Jan 04 '11 at 22:02

mario

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 04 '11 at 21:59

0

Check out preg_replace (http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php)

$pattern = '\(KEY\)(\w+)\s';
$replacement = '<p>$1</p>';
$string = preg_replace($pattern,$replacement,$string);

Something like that should work.

answered Jan 04 '11 at 21:59

nivshah

4 Answers4