[RESOLVED] Tags

gotornot

Hi
Im looking to make a system that will replace tags in content for example:

Hi {name} are you ok?

I want it to output:

Hi Bob are you ok?

At the moment i am having to use $name is there a single command that can handle this?

big_nerd

There are many ways to do this:

This is a snippet from one of my earlier (unused) apps:

  $stuff = "Hello [name] Where how are you? Good [NaMe]!";
  $stuff = preg_replace("/\[name\]/i","big.nerd",$stuff);

This is a very basic implementation that is not without its issues, but is a good start, as it is not case sensitive.

I would look into the preg_replace(), preg_match() and read up on some Regular Expression tutorials to help you get started.

shawty

A much quicker way is to use str_replace with arrays, especially if you know what your tags are going to be in advance.

str_replace is also slightly faster to execute than the preg functions, which you typicly only need if your search string is variable.


$search_tokens = array("{name}","{age}","{occupation}");
$replacement_values = array("Shawty","n/a","programmer");

$phrase "USER : {name} - age is {age} and they are a {occupation}";

$newphrase = str_replace($search_tokens, $replacement_values, $phrase);

Cheers

Shawty

big_nerd

This is true, it is much quicker & easier, however is case sensitive, unless I am mistaken?

shawty

Not that I'm aware of big.nerd. I could be wrong however. :-)

Arguably though, if your in control of the tags for the template then it's not a huge effort to ensure they are entered in lower/upper case i suppose, either that or you could call str_replace twice :-)

Cheers

Shawty

bradgrafelman

[man]str_replace/man is indeed case-sensitive, while [man]str_ireplace/man is not.

laserlight

big.nerd wrote:
This is true, it is much quicker & easier, however is case sensitive, unless I am mistaken?

Yes, it is case sensitive.

shawty wrote:
Arguably though, if your in control of the tags for the template then it's not a huge effort to ensure they are entered in lower/upper case i suppose, either that or you could call str_replace twice :-)

Calling str_replace() twice may not be good enough, since the letters to be replaced could be in mixed case. One would need to use say strtolower(), but that alters the original string in ways that may be undesirable. In short, if the replacement needs to be case insensitive, one might as well go with preg_replace().

EDIT:
Good call on str_ireplace().

shawty

Defo a good call on "str_ireplace" brad... in fact I'd never heard of that one until now.

Calling str_replace() twice may not be good enough, since the letters to be replaced could be in mixed case. One would need to use say strtolower(), but that alters the original string in ways that may be undesirable. In short, if the replacement needs to be case insensitive, one might as well go with preg_replace().

yup... you hit the nail on the head there, but by the time i thought of that i'd already hit the submit button... 😃