Replace first letter in string

coldwerturkey

I'm trying to turn a string like

HELLO NOGDOG

<span...>H</span>ELLO <span...>N</span>OGDOG

with preg_replace() but so far have only given myself a headache...

Please help, & thank you

laserlight

One possible implementation would be:

$str = 'HELLO NOGDOG';
$str = preg_replace('/(\S)(\S+)/', '<span>$1</span>$2', $str);
echo htmlspecialchars($str);

coldwerturkey

thank you,

But I'm also looking for it to work if the number of words are dynamic and unknown,

laserlight

But I'm also looking for it to work if the number of words are dynamic and unknown,

As far as I can tell, that works for an arbitrary number of words, though it defines "word" as "sequence of two or more non-whitespace characters". If you want "one or more", then change (\S+) to (\S*).

coldwerturkey

thank you so much, you've saved my day

laserlight

No problem, though note that how I defined a "word" may not be the same as how you define a word, so if your definition is different, you must make the appropriate changes.

Remember to mark this thread as resolved (if it is) using the thread tools.

NogDog

Another option, just because TMTOWTDI.

$string = preg_replace('/\b\w/', "<span>$0</span>", $string);

nrg_alpha

NogDog;10887414 wrote:
Another option, just because TMTOWTDI.

TMTOWTDI = ?? (WTF? LOL) 😃

EDIT - After some pondering, does it mean: To Me The Only Way To Do It?

coldwerturkey

There's More Than One Way To Do It

nrg_alpha

Ah... that makes sense.