In php is there a quick way of replacing every other character (non spaces) in a string with something else ? I searched around and haven't found a solution.
Take something like this:
$str = "This is my example string!"
And end up with something like this:
$result = "T*i* i* m* e*a*p*e s*r*n*!
Simple preg_replace() solution:
$str = "This is my example string!";
$result = preg_replace('/(\S)\S/', '$1*', $str);
print_r($result);
The output:
T*i* i* m* e*a*p*e s*r*n*!
\S - stands for non-whitespace characterYou can treat the string as an array, loop through it and change the character using modulo to check for parity:
<?php
$string = "This is my test string";
$length = strlen($string);
for ($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
$string[$i] = $i % 2 === 0 ? $string[$i] : "*";
}
echo $string;
Result:
T*i* *s*m* *e*t*s*r*n*
preg_replace() is certainly appropriate more direct approach versuses looped processes. The regex doesn't need a capture group and the replacement doesn't need a backreference, use \K to reset the fullstring match. Demo
echo preg_replace('#\S\K\S#', '*', $string);
// T*i* i* m* t*s* s*r*n*
