How can I reduce this one line of code

str_replace

[Roel]

Hi guys

How can I reduce this:

str_replace('/','',str_replace('-','',str_replace('&','',str_replace(')','',str_replace('(','',str_replace('"','',str_replace('.','',str_replace('!','',str_replace('?','',str_replace(' ',' ',str_replace(', ',', and ',str_replace(' ',', ',$title),-1)))))))))))

Thanks heaps

[jatar_k]

you can use an array with str_replace

$badchars = array('/', '-', '&', ')', '(', '"', '.', '!', '?');
str_replace($badchars,'',$title);
str_replace(', ',', and ',$title);

that is much easier to read.

you seem to be replacing a space with a space in there, I skipped that. You also are replacing spaces with comma space, not too sure about that one either, I left it out.

[Roel]

Thanks heaps Jatar!

It's actually become a bit longer :)

$title=str_replace(':','', str_replace(';','', str_replace('/','', str_replace('-','', str_replace('&','', str_replace(')','', str_replace('(','', str_replace('"','', str_replace('.','', str_replace('!','', str_replace('?','', str_replace(' ',' ', str_replace(' ',', ',trim($title))))))))))))))

I replace two spaces with one and space with comma space

Any ideas how I could use preg to do this?

[edited by: jatar_k at 2:38 pm (utc) on May 28, 2007]
[edit reason] fixed sidescroll [/edit]

[Roel]

Or is there another way to remove all special chars and numbers from a string, leaving ONLY text (a-z, A-Z)?

[jatar_k]

regular expressions

[php.net...]

I still don't get why you replace every space with comma space, but that's just me ;)

it is a bit longer but much more readable

are you cleaning user submitted data?

[Roel]

Yeah I looked at preg_replace but it seems very complex. Could you get me started?

I am cleaning up a list of words and then I seperate them by comma.

[CDNQuilter]

" Or is there another way to remove all special chars and numbers from a string, leaving ONLY text (a-z, A-Z)? "

Try:

$before ='This is a sentence )*(a(B*Z&abc%QER12356';

$after = preg_replace( '/[^a-zA-Z]/', '', $before);

echo $before.'<br />'.$after.'<br />';

to get

This is a sentence )*(a(B*Z&abc%QER12356
ThisisasentenceaBZabcQER

or add a space to the pattern to keep the spacing between the words

$after = preg_replace( '/[^a-zA-Z ]/', '', $before);

echo $before.'<br />'.$after.'<br />';

to get

This is a sentence )*(a(B*Z&abc%QER12356
This is a sentence aBZabcQER

PS
For what you are doing, if you KNOW the strings you want to eliminate, str_repl executes faster.

[edited by: CDNQuilter at 6:00 pm (utc) on May 28, 2007]

[Roel]

Hi CDNQuilter

Awesome! Works great!

Thank you so much!

I have one more question that you may be able to help me with:

My string may look like this:

word1, word2, word3, word4

I would like to make this:

word1, word2, word3 and word4

so the LAST comma in the string has to be swapped to " and "

I tried things like str_replace (', ', ' and ', $subject, -1) but this does not seem to work (maybe because I have PHP4)

Any ideas?

Thanks again for the preg help - now that I see it it makes more sense.

[edited by: Roel at 1:38 am (utc) on June 4, 2007]

[Roel]

Could anyone help me with this? Thanks!

[Arno_Adams]

Hi Roel,

To create a nice sentence, try this:

function makeLine($str) {
$a = explode(', ', $str);
for($i=0; $i<count($a)-1; $i++) {
$tmp.= $a[$i].', ';
}
$tmp = substr($tmp, 0, strlen($tmp)-2);
$tmp.= ' and '.$a[count($a)-1];
return $tmp;
}

HTH, AA

[Roel]

Hi AA

Thanks heaps to you as well!

So there was no easy solution like the "-1" :)

I used a modified version of your code in the header and footer of my pages.

Thanks again
Roel