[Resolved] Help with str_replace

[TheDefender]

OK, I have been beating my head over the desk for a while now, and am stuck with a problem that probably has a simple solution, but I can't grasp it.

First the code:

// Lower case the search string to find matches regardless of case
$stringtoreplace = strtolower("jon");

// I want to bold face the search criteria and use that as my replacement
$replacestring = "<B>".$stringtoreplace."</B>";

// Lower case the search string to find matches regardless of case
$string = strtolower("Jones");

// Use str_replace to make the switch
$replacelastname = str_replace($stringtoreplace, $replacestring, $string);

// Now, uppercase the first letter of the result.
$replacelastname = ucfirst($replacelastname);

// Echo the output
echo $replacelastname;

I have commented it to explain my thought process.

OK, simple enough right?

Here's the problem... This works fine (and capitalizes the output properly) if you change the "jon" (in the $stringtoreplace variable) to "one" for example, but if that variable has the first letter, it screws up. ONE THING TO NOTE is if I use strtoupper, it caps the entire wod regardless like it should, but I only want the first letter capped....

I think the problem is because of the appended BOLD tag (which essentially removes the whitespace from the front of the word), but it shouldn't matter, because even the bold tags become part fo the string.

Is there an easier way to do this? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[LordShryku]

$string   = "JoNeS";
$lastname = ucfirst(strtolower($string));
$name     = eregi_replace("(jon)", "<b>\\1</b>", $lastname);
echo $name;

[TheDefender]

Thanks. Now, I am going to sub in my variables instead of hardsetting the data, and making sure it works OK, before I mark this thread resolved, but so far, so good.

Thanks a million!

[sidney]

if you just want the J in Jones to be capitalized again just do the replacement

 // Lower case the search string to find matches regardless of case 
$stringtoreplace = strtolower("jon"); 

// I want to bold face the search criteria and use that as my replacement  and upper case first letter
$replacestring = "<B>".ucfirst($stringtoreplace)."</B>"; 

// Lower case the search string to find matches regardless of case 
$string = strtolower("Jones"); 

// Use str_replace to make the switch 
$replacelastname = str_replace($stringtoreplace, $replacestring, $string); 

// Echo the output 
echo $replacelastname; 

[TheDefender]

Thanks LordShryku. What you gave me is exactly what I needed. I kept looking at the ereg_replace function, and completely overlooked the eregi_replace function when I first started this.

Sindey, I looked at what you did too, but the problem was if the string was in the middle of the word. I didn't want that to be capitalized. The key was LordShryku's suggestion in using eregi_replace, so as to perform the task in a case-insensitive fashion to start, rather than getting into that whole mess with switching cases all over the place.

[sidney]

ah confussion over the example

you probably dont need it now but ill post any way

 $stringtoreplace = strtolower("one"); 
$string = strtolower("Jones"); 
$front=$string{0};
$replacelastname=str_replace($stringtoreplace,"<B>".$stringtoreplace."</B>",$string);
$pos=strpos($replacelastname,$front);
$replacelastname=($pos==0)?ucfirst($replacelastname):substr_replace($replacelastname,ucfirst($front),$pos,1);
echo $replacelastname; 

[TheDefender]

Thanks for the clarification Sidney. I will add that to my repository as well, because it seems to be asfunctional. I am not altogether familiar with the strpos function, but I see that your code works. Now, I have to disect it to see why... In either respect, LordShryku's code works well, appears to be cleaner, and most importantly makes a bit more sense to me so for now, I am going with his/her code.

But, like I said, I will definitely be picking apart your code to see how it does what it does, and who knows... I just may be switching the code down the road. Thanks for the clarification and for all of your help.

Incidentally, I would be interested in seeing if your code could be cleaned up a bit using the stripos function verses the strpos one, since stripos is case-insensitive. Just curious... Maybe when I break yours down, I will play with it some to see what I can do with it... Thanks again.

[LordShryku]

Just out of curiosity, why do the conditional on $replacelastname? If you're forcing a <B> in front of the string, $pos==0 should always return false. Unless your first charachter was already "<", in which case you wouldn't be using ucfirst on it anyway...

stripos isn't available until php 5, in which case, doing all the strtolowers is basically mimicing it.

[TheDefender]

I stand corrected... I didn't even see the CSV5 indication in my PHP Manual the first time for the stripos function. You throw in an interesting question LordShryku... I am interested in seeing Sid's response, and in the mean time, I will be disecting his/her code when I have a chance.

Thanks again for all of your help.

[sidney]

stripos is php5 and if you have that then str_ireplace would also be possible

[sidney]

Originally posted by LordShryku
Just out of curiosity, why do the conditional on $replacelastname? If you're forcing a <B> in front of the string, $pos==0 should always return false. Unless your first charachter was already "<", in which case you wouldn't be using ucfirst on it anyway...

what if the string replacement hasnt affected the first char

if it returns false or 0 then the first character is uppercased

otherwise the position of first is replaced with a capital