Replacing characters

[newbieiguess]

Hi, on my bulleting board i have enable smileys like msn using:

$message = ereg_replace("(N)","<img src=\"30.gif\">",$message);

PROBLEM IS:

Too many people use more than one together like (y)(n)(o) etc etc i would like to put a SPACE between each one to prevent my layout to loose shape, i'll already use:

$message = ereg_replace(")(",") (",$message);

Since for me it's obvius that if ")(" is found just have to replace it with ") (" and voila a space is created but there's an error how can this be done without errors?

thanks.

[devinemke]

i don't really see that you need regex at all for this

$message = str_replace('(N)', ' <img src="30.gif"> ', $message);

note the spaces around the <img> tag