Need to search a string for a substring of a certain length

Search for substring of continuous characters

[eawade]

I am trying to create a simple function, maybe using Regular Expressions, that would let me search text for a substring of continuous characters. For example, I don't want a word or URL etc. to exceed 25 characters in length. The most important thing is that the string is identified and replaced.

Example:
$str = "this is a simple string of cxdhbnmkgfhgfsa/:$&@xxstrehxvifdsa that I want to check";

I want to be able to locate the long substring within $str and replace it with something else. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ethan

[dublinmike]

Maybe something like:

$str = preg_replace('/[^ ]{25,}/','',$str);

Haven't tested (or re-read it) but it should get you on the right track...

[rocknbil]

Edit: <facepalm X 1000> Be sure to use double quotes in the actual preg functions so the $reg variable interpolates. Original posting left for stupidity's sake . . . .

-----------------------------------

Odd! dublinmike's solution should work, and works perfectly in Perl: (wrong . . . also works in PHP)

#!/usr/bin/perl 
$reg = '[^\s]{25,}'; 
$replace_string = '<strong style="color:#ff0000">This word is too long</strong>'; 
$str = ' 
 <p>this is a simple string of cxdhbnmkgfhgfsa/:$&@xxstrehxvifdsa that I want to check</p> 
 <p>Slightly modifed for multiline testing.</p> 
';  
 print "<p>regex: $reg</p> $str\n"; 
if ($str =~ /$reg/m) { 
 $str =~ s/$reg/$replace_string/m; 
 print "<p><strong>Warning:</strong> you have a string that is too long.</p>\n"; 
} 
print $str; 
######### End perl 

However, does not work in PHP! (wrong . . . yes it does . . . )

<?php 
header("content-type:text/html"); 
$reg = '[^\s]{25,}'; 
$replace_string = '<strong style="color:#ff0000">This word is too long</strong>'; 
$str = ' 
 <p>this is a simple string of cxdhbnmkgfhgfsa/:$&@xxstrehxvifdsa that I want to check</p> 
 <p>Slightly modifed for multiline testing.</p> 
';  
echo "<p>regex: $reg</p> $str\n"; 
if (preg_match("/$reg/m",$str)) { 
 $str = preg_replace("/$reg/m",$replace_string,$str); 
 echo "<p><strong>Warning:</strong> you have a string that is too long.</p>\n"; 
} 
echo $str; 
?>