Ereg Replace

Anon

Hi,
Can any one help me figure out why this code isn't working, my brain hurts and it isn't even very complicated!

$string = "this is a poo site and I think that it is boo and raa so there";

//define array of bad words
$array_bad_words = array("poo","boo","raaa");

//count the number of elements in the array
$num_elements = count($array_bad_words);

//for amount of elements replace bad words
for ($i = 1; $i < $num_elements; $i++) {
$replaced_string = ereg_replace("$array_bad_words[$i]","#@*&%",$string);
}

echo"Original: $string<P>";

echo"Replaced: $replaced_string";

Cheers,

Jord

Anon

Your basic problem is that when you loop, you're not catching all the possible bad words. You need to read the string varible into a new variable and loop through the new copy of the original string. Try the following, it worked for me when I hacked your code a bit:
<?

$string = "this is a poo site and I think that it is boo and raa so there";
$replaced_string = $string;

//define array of bad words
$array_bad_words = array("poo","boo","raa");

//count the number of elements in the array
$num_elements = count($array_bad_words);

//for amount of elements replace bad words
for ($i = 1; $i < $num_elements; $i++) {
$replaced_string = ereg_replace("$array_bad_words[$i]","#@*&%",$replaced_string);
}

echo"Original: $string<P>";

echo"Replaced: $replaced_string";

Hope this helps.......

Cheers,

Geoff
www.mithril.com

Anon

Thanks, it works but I don't understand why you have to read it into another variable first.

Jord

Anon

Think of it this way:

The first time your for loop runs, it replaces the first bad word. Then loops back searches through $string again which hasn't changed to reflect the first ereg. In essence you need to check the altered string each time you loop through

Anon

In this case, I read $string into $replaced_string so that the modified script would echo the original and ereg'ed string like the script in your example. If you don't want to echo the original string then using $string as $replaced_string will work just as well.

Anon

Thanks Geoff, I understand now.
Cheers
Jord