tricky replace function

[windandwaves]

Hi Folk

I need to write a tricky replacement function.

C = replace A with B in C
C = replace D with E in C

examples of A could be "a cat climbs a tree", examples of B could be
"a dog climbs a alligator". Thereby, I want to make sure that parts
that have already been replaced will not be replaced again (by the E
replaces D statement for example). I will mark all new text (Bs and
Es) with <span class="replacePart">... new text here ....</span>.

How could I go about this? Could I use a regular expression?

Thank you

Nicolaas

[Michael Fesser]

..oO(windandwaves)

>I need to write a tricky replacement function.

C = replace A with B in C
C = replace D with E in C

examples of A could be "a cat climbs a tree", examples of B could be
"a dog climbs a alligator". Thereby, I want to make sure that parts
that have already been replaced will not be replaced again (by the E
replaces D statement for example). I will mark all new text (Bs and
Es) with <span class="replacePart">... new text here ....</span>.

How could I go about this? Could I use a regular expression?

You could try strtr() first, called with only two parameters. See the
manual for details.

http://www.php.net/strtr

Micha

[macca]

Unless I am misunderstanding what you are looking for, as I cant see
why this is so complex, why not just use a simple srt_replace
function?

<?php

$find = array('cat','tree');

$replace = array('dog','alligator');

$phrase = "a cat climbs a tree";
echo str_replace($find,$replace,$phrase);

//outputs "a dog climbs a alligator"
?>

[macca]

why this is so complex, why not just use a simple srt_replace

that's str_replace

[windandwaves]

Why is this so hard?

I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

e.g.
statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

That is what is the hard part.

Thank you

Nicolaas

[Good Man]

windandwaves <nf*******@gmail.comwrote in news:1194381953.358772.178700
@q3g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

Why is this so hard?

I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

e.g.
statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

That is what is the hard part.

then yes, go for regex so you can specify beginnings/ends of words as
opposed to characters in a string

[Michael Fesser]

..oO(windandwaves)

>Why is this so hard?

I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

e.g.
statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

That is what is the hard part.

That's why I suggested to give strtr() a try, which should avoid this
problem.

Micha

[windandwaves]

On Nov 7, 10:21 am, Michael Fesser <[e-mail]:

.oO(windandwaves)

Why is this so hard?

I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

e.g.
statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

That is what is the hard part.

That's why I suggested to give strtr() a try, which should avoid this
problem.

Micha

Hi Micha

>From what I understand strtr only replace characters, not sentences,

so I am not sure if that would work.

Cheers

Nicolaas

[windandwaves]

On Nov 7, 9:55 am, Good Man <[e-mail]:

windandwaves <[e-mail] in news:1194381953.358772.178700
@q3g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

Why is this so hard?

I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

e.g.
statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

That is what is the hard part.

then yes, go for regex so you can specify beginnings/ends of words as
opposed to characters in a string

Hi

I thought that would be the way to go. I dont think I have enough
skills to write a fully-fledged regex for this. Would you have any
ideas?

Thank you

Nicolaas

[Darko]

On Nov 8, 11:13 pm, windandwaves <[e-mail]:

On Nov 7, 10:21 am, Michael Fesser <[e-mail]:

.oO(windandwaves)

>Why is this so hard?

>I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
>I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

>e.g.
>statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
>statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

>as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

>That is what is the hard part.

That's why I suggested to give strtr() a try, which should avoid this
problem.

Micha

Hi Micha

From what I understand strtr only replace characters, not sentences,

so I am not sure if that would work.

Cheers

Nicolaas

Please read the manual more carefully. Because, yes, the first few
lines say the following:

This function returns a copy of str, translating all occurrences of each
character in from to the corresponding character in to.

What also says there is the following:

strtr() may be called with only two arguments. If called with two arguments it
behaves in a new way: from then has to be an array that contains string -string
pairs that will be replaced in the source string.

strtr() will always look for the longest possible match first and will *NOT* try
to replace stuff that it has already worked on.

Cheers

[windandwaves]

On Nov 9, 1:06 pm, Darko <[e-mail]:

On Nov 8, 11:13 pm, windandwaves <[e-mail]:

On Nov 7, 10:21 am, Michael Fesser <[e-mail]:

.oO(windandwaves)

Why is this so hard?

I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

e.g.
statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

That is what is the hard part.

That's why I suggested to give strtr() a try, which should avoid this
problem.

Micha

Hi Micha

>From what I understand strtr only replace characters, not sentences,

so I am not sure if that would work.

Cheers

Nicolaas

Please read the manual more carefully. Because, yes, the first few
lines say the following:

This function returns a copy of str, translating all occurrences of each
character in from to the corresponding character in to.

What also says there is the following:

strtr() may be called with only two arguments. If called with two arguments it
behaves in a new way: from then has to be an array that contains string -string
pairs that will be replaced in the source string.
strtr() will always look for the longest possible match first and will *NOT* try
to replace stuff that it has already worked on.

Cheers

Oh wow, my bad! Thank you.... I read that, but I did not really
understand it. Wow, that is great. What a joy!

Thank you - that does exactly what I need.

My apologies.....!

Thank you

[Darko]

On Nov 10, 12:33 am, windandwaves <[e-mail]:

On Nov 9, 1:06 pm, Darko <[e-mail]:

On Nov 8, 11:13 pm, windandwaves <[e-mail]:

On Nov 7, 10:21 am, Michael Fesser <[e-mail]:

.oO(windandwaves)

>Why is this so hard?

>I can do a str_replace. That is easy. However, I do many of them AND
>I want to make sure that one replacement does not override another...

>e.g.
>statement 1 could be: replace "cats" with "dogs"
>statement 2 could be: replaced "do" with "did"

>as you can see, this could turn "cats" into "didgs"

>That is what is the hard part.

That's why I suggested to give strtr() a try, which should avoid this
problem.

Micha

Hi Micha

From what I understand strtr only replace characters, not sentences,

so I am not sure if that would work.

Cheers

Nicolaas

Please read the manual more carefully. Because, yes, the first few
lines say the following:

This function returns a copy of str, translating all occurrences of each
character in from to the corresponding character in to.

What also says there is the following:

strtr() may be called with only two arguments. If called with two arguments it
behaves in a new way: from then has to be an array that contains string -string
pairs that will be replaced in the source string.
strtr() will always look for the longest possible match first and will *NOT* try
to replace stuff that it has already worked on.

Cheers

Oh wow, my bad! Thank you.... I read that, but I did not really
understand it. Wow, that is great. What a joy!

Thank you - that does exactly what I need.

My apologies.....!

Thank you

You should feel good, because it means it wasn't trivial :) as soon as
they provided us
with such function :)