[RESOLVED] string question

scialom

Hello,

I try to find the best method to handle a string.

Lets say I have a string that I get from the database:
$str = "What is the area of #Country#?";

What I want to do is extract Country from the string replace it with a value and insert it back to the string in the relevant place.

So in the end it will look like:
$new_str = "What is the area of Italy?";

Of course I don't know if the string will have #Country# or something else. So I am looking for a sub string between two ##

any ideas?

Undrium

I do not have any access to test this right now but this is my guess how you could solve this:

This will find countries within the "#" in your string and put the matches in the $matches variable:

preg_match("/#(.*)#/Usi", $str, $matches);

This will replace the country with a new one:

preg_replace("/#(.*)#/Usi", "Yournewcountry", $str);

Also read these two links for some more feedback:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-match.php
http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php

scialom

thanks this does the trick

scialom

ok one more question...
I understand it puts it into $matches which is an array with two keys (0,1)
but how can I get the numbers of time I have ## in a string. For example in this string:
$str = "What is the area of #City# in #Country#?";
this is what I would get :
Array ( [0] => #City# [1] => City) Array ( [0] => #Country# [1] => Country)

so I don't really know how many times it happened. When I print count($matches); I get 2 - but I am looking for the 4 value.

Any idea?

bradgrafelman

Multiply by 2?

scialom

no...
I found the answer preg_match_all