Best approach to this using preg_replace/match

[fartsniff]

i found this code out in the ng, and its seems long and clunky,
i am still experimenting with preg_match and _replace, but the
syntax is a bit confusing. it seems i always misplace or mistype
something.

this is the code that i am trying to replace with better, optimized code.
i would like to make a preg_match and then preg_replace for this, and if
a match is found, just removing it.

i started with this:
(preg_match ("/(\*\/)|(\/\*)|(\-\-)|(#|;)/", $line))
and
$line = preg_replace ("/(\*\/)|(\/\*)|(\-\-)|(#|;)/", "", $line) . ";";

and this is the total items that i am searching for:
$line = str_replace(".", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("\"", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("'", "", $line);
$line = str_replace("+", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("-", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("*", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("/", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("!", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("%", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace(">", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("<", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("^", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("(", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace(")", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("[", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("]", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("{", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("}", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("\\", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("=", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("$", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("#", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("?", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("~", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace(":", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("_", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace(" ", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("&amp;", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("&copy;", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("&nbsp;", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("&quot;", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("&uuml;", "ü", $line);
$line = str_replace("&Uuml;", "Ü", $line);
$line = str_replace("&", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace(";", " ", $line);
$line = str_replace("\n", " ", $line);

should i just leave all of the str_replaces ? or can preg handle all of
these ?
thanks.

[Jason Dumler]

fartsniff wrote:

i found this code out in the ng, and its seems long and clunky,
Yeah, but sometimes you gotta take the long and clunky road
this is the code that i am trying to replace with better, optimized code.
See my comment below about arrays.
i would like to make a preg_match and then preg_replace for this, and if
a match is found, just removing it.
Since all the characters you are trying to replace are not part of a
simple class of characters (\s is spaces, \d is digits, etc.)

<snip lots of code>

should i just leave all of the str_replaces ? or can preg handle all of
these ?
thanks.

According to the documentation, you can use arrays with str_replace.
Something like this:

<?
$search = array("+", "-", "&amp;");
$replace = array(" ", " ", " ");

$result = str_replace($search, $replace, $line);
// or, if they are all replaced with the same thing
$result = str_replace($search, " ", $line);
?>

You build a big array at first, but it's not so hard to maintain, once
you get the initial array in place. This *seems* less clunky...

Jason