String replace help

Anon

Using ereg_replace it is possible to replace a pattern or a string
with a chosen replacement string.
But this replaces a string throughout
Is it possible to replace only the first appearing value

e.g if the string was "This was was was there" Is it possible to
replace only the first was like "This is was was there"

This may be a clumsy example but I think the point is through

rbenfield

You could do this. (Note: This would only work if you wanted to replace the first instance not the Nth instance)

<?php

$Original_String = "This was was was there";
$Replace_String = "was";

$Replace_Position = strpos( $Original_String, $Replace_String);
$Replace_Length = strlen($Replace_String);
If($Replace_Position >= '0') {
$New_String = substr_replace($Original_String, "", $Replace_Position, $Replace_Length);
} else {
$New_String = "No instances found. String left as is.<br>".$Original_String;
}
Echo $New_String;

There are two things to note, you can do an Nth replacement but as far as I know you would have to code it. You could loop through a piece of code that used the strpos function adding a argument on the end of the current position + length. Each loop would constitute an instance. The other thing to note is that it will only replace what you tell it to so if you run the above code it should result in two space. There are several ways to deal with that but I thought I would point it out.

Hope that helps,
Richard

Anon

<?
$string = 'This was was was there';
$string = explode (' ', $string);
foreach ($string as $key => $value) {
if ($value == 'was') {
unset ($string[$key]);
break;
}
}
$string = implode (' ', $string);
echo $string;
?>

This returns "'This was was there"

Anon

Thanks Richard
I got your soln.
You were right. It is a sequence of replaces where each "was" would be replaced by a different string.

just 1 doubt
Since I was thinking in terms of pattern replace
Is it possible that I use ereg_replace

Since It would be a more elegant solution But I could not figure out whether it was feasible

(I was thinking of this since In your solution I would have to even keep a record of all the postions of my target string.)

Thanks a lot for your help.