Regular Expression Help

[Phoenix_Down]

How can I replace the '\' to '-'. I'm trying to do that with ereg_replace and it won't work.

Thanks.

[halojoy]

hi.
for this you can use [man]str_replace/man
From the PHP Manual (=my link above):

If you don't need fancy replacing rules (like regular expressions),
you should always use this function instead of ereg_replace() or preg_replace().

No need to use Regex, if we do not have to.
Some Regex functions can be rather SLOW.

This code below, I have run and tested

<?php

//the reason I use two \, is because 
// character \needs to be eascaped by one backslash
// $text is REALLY:    some\thing

$text = "some\\thing";
echo $text.'<br>';
$text = str_replace( '\\', '-', $text );
echo $text;

echo '<hr>';

// Using several replacements in arrays
$search  = array( '\\', 'g', 's' );
$replace = array( '-' , '@', '@' );

$text = "some\\thing";
echo $text.'<br>';
$text = str_replace( $search, $replace, $text );
echo $text;

?>

[Thora_Fan]

Chances are the reason it won't work in ereg_replace is that both \ and - are regular expression characters. You need to escape these characters first.

I agree with halojoy though, use str_replace unless you absolutely need regex.

[bradgrafelman]

Thora_Fan wrote:

use str_replace unless you absolutely need regex.

Agreed. Even if you do need the power of regexp, you should never use the ereg functions; instead, the the [man]PCRE[/man] regexp functions have long since taken precedence.