How to?: Clean Telephone number

smumdax

Hi there...

Simple question:

How can I format a simple telephone number string looking like: xxxxxxxxxx into a visually clean one like: (xxx)xxx-xxxx ?
The is a space by the way 😉

Relating to this question, I'd like to know if there's any function that can add a string at a pre-determined position?

tomhath

http://www.phpbuilder.com/manual/function.preg-replace.php

smumdax

Hum... I guess if I was a Senior member, I would understand this... but I am a Junior newbie ignorant little piece of... lol

So, ok, What am I suppose to understand in all this?

First of, I don't want to "replace" anything, just add... but then again, surely this function must do it.. I just don't understand it... and for me, understanding is quite important... even more whne the answer you provide to me ain't the "all-made" answer...

Nonetheless, waiting for another answer, I'll try and understand by myself... I ain't that lazy you know 😉

Smumdax

shelby

Hello --

Yes, you are replacing....You're replacing the first occurence of three digits in a row with those digits surrounded by parentheses...

e.g. if your number is 1234567890, you can:
replace 123 with (123)
replace 456 with _456-

and then you'll have (123) 456-7890

Have you ever written regular expressions? You'll need to learn how to write them to use preg_replace. The examples they give are kind of complex. 🙂

Here's a tutorial on regular expressions: http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/dario19990616.php3

FYI a version of the PHP manual entry for preg_replace with user commentary can be found at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php

--I don't know the answer to your other question, sorry.

deathman

I agree with the above posters. If you're going to be doing much with PHP in the future, you're really going to want to get a handle on regular expressions. they can be very complex, but if you start simple, and take it slow, you'll be a master in no time, and you might understand the examples under preg_replace(). I think they are way confusing, since I'm still a beginner with regex, as well.

One of the benefites of learning regex is that they help you to keep your applications secure. You can make sure that people can't enter numbers in your name input, or some malicous code where you were just wanting feedback.

Bad things can happen when people put stuff in input boxes that you never intended. You can verify anything with regex. Its awesome.

Look up multiple tutorials, and read through them all the way. there are tons of them on the web. Good luck.

smumdax

Thanks guys, I'll look into all of this and try to find my way around with these regex things... But for now, I am not afraid of malicious codes as I am only coding an application for a restricted access page.. only 9 users will be able to access it, and believe me, they don't even know what HTML is...

Anyway, if anyone can put up an already made-up "little" code for the way-up there needs, go let it out! It will save me much time for now...

Smumdax

mikeatrpi

To avoid regex's you could slap something together with substr(). It's not as pretty of course, but it will work and should make sense.

$phoneno = "0123456789";
$areacode = substr($phoneno, 0,3);
$exchange = substr($phoneno,3,3);
$end = substr($phoneno,6,4);
echo "($areacode) $exchange-$end";

Untested, hope it works.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.substr.php

smumdax

Hehe! That is exactly what I needed... and while looking at it, I can't believe I just didn't think about it before...

Thanks a whole Paramount production lot !

Smumdax