Simple preg_replace for variable strings to values not working

Question

I am just trying to make it so that {string} will turn into the value of the $string variable.

For example, consider I have the following variables:

$car = 'Audi';
$speed = 'Fast';
$sentence = "The {car} goes {speed}";

I want this to output: The Audi goes Fast

Here is my code which is not working:

$setting['leads_low_subject'] = '{dealer_name} has {leads_left} leads left!';
$dealer_name = 'My Test Dealer';
$leads_left = 6;

$subject = preg_replace('/\{([a-z]+)\}/e', "$$1", $setting['leads_low_subject']);

echo $setting['leads_low_subject'].'<br />';
echo "$subject";

This is echoing:

{dealer_name} has {leads_left} leads left!
{dealer_name} has {leads_left} leads left!

When it should be echoing:

{dealer_name} has {leads_left} leads left!
My Test Dealer has 6 leads left!

Why is it not working properly?

{dealer_name} has an underscore, but you match [a-z]+, might try with [a-z_]+ or \w+ where \w is a shorthand to [A-Za-z0-9_] — Jonny 5
– Jonny 5, Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 22:08
i knew it was something rediculously simple. thank you jonny. dagon, im aware of the security flaws, but the $setting variable content is not publicly accessible and will never contain a malicious string. — scarhand
– scarhand, Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 22:09
@scarhand the e modifier is deprecated. Use preg_replace_callback() as a replacement. — HamZa
– HamZa, Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 22:21

Casimir et Hippolyte · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-05 22:11:31Z

4

The fastest way i see is to use strtr():

$trans = array( '{car}'   => 'Audi',
                '{speed}' => 'Fast');

$result = strtr($sentence, $trans);

answered Mar 5, 2014 at 22:11

Casimir et Hippolyte

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hek2mgl · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-05 22:11:35Z

2

Seems like you are looking for a poor man's template engine. You could use preg_replace_callback():

$tpl_vars = array(
    'car' => 'Ford',
    'speed' => 'fast'
);


$tpl = 'The {car} goes {speed}';

echo preg_replace_callback('/\{(.*?)\}/', function($match) use ($tpl_vars) {
    return $tpl_vars[$match[1]];
}, $tpl);

answered Mar 5, 2014 at 22:11

hek2mgl

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