php - regex matching question

Question

I'm using the google translate api for some simple stuff but when translating english to other languages it sometimes gives me spaces between quotes, so can someone give me a regex matching statement in php to replace the space between the quote and first word and the quote and last word?

Example translated phrase: word word word " constructie in Londen " word word word

I would like the regex to convert it to: word word word "constructie in Londen" word word word

Thanks!

not sure what you mean, some phrases might have the quotes, some phrases might not. So if there is not matched quotes then obviously the regex wouldn't do anything to the string. — Joe
– Joe, Commented Feb 14, 2011 at 3:55
I am saying are there unbalanced quotes. Ie in the whole text string are there an odd number of quotes instead of even. — GWW
– GWW, Commented Feb 14, 2011 at 4:20

xzyfer · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-14 07:59:23Z

1

This is the pattern: "\s*(.*?)\s*"

$str = 'word word word " constructie in Londen " word word word';
$newStr = preg_replace('/"\s*(.*?)\s*"/', '"\\1"', $str);
echo $newStr;
// word word word "constructie in Londen" word word word

This will also work with multiple quoted segments:

$str = 'word word word " constructie in Londen " word word wordword word word " constructie in Londen " word word wordword word word " constructie in Londen " word word word';
$newStr = preg_replace('/"\s*(.*?)\s*"/', '"\\1"', $str);
echo $newStr;
// word word word "constructie in Londen" word word wordword word word "constructie in Londen" word word wordword word word "constructie in Londen" word word word

Or you could use the /e modifier with trim:

$str = 'word word word " constructie in Londen " word word wordword word word " constructie in Londen " word word wordword word word " constructie in Londen " word word word';
$newStr = preg_replace('/"(.*?)"/e', "'\"'.trim('\\1').'\"'", $str);
echo $newStr;
// word word word "constructie in Londen" word word wordword word word "constructie in Londen" word word wordword word word "constructie in Londen" word word word

Edited to use Phil Brown's suggestion.

Edited to use Alan Moore's suggestion.

edited Feb 14, 2011 at 7:59

answered Feb 14, 2011 at 3:59

xzyfer

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4 Comments

Phil Over a year ago

You can also use a non-greedy match, rather than the "everything but quotes" range, eg /"\s?(.*?)\s?"/

xzyfer Over a year ago

@Phil, I'm not sure why that works, but it does, and it's much cleaner. Bravo. I'm gonna have to google that one.

Alan Moore Over a year ago

With that trim() call in the replacement, you don't need to match the spaces explicitly; '/"(.*?)"/e' works just as well, as does '/"([^"]*)"/e'. Or you could drop trim() and take full advantage of reluctant quantifiers instead: $newStr = preg_replace('/"\s*([^"]*?)\s*"/', '"$1"', $str); - ref: regular-expressions.info/repeat.html

xzyfer Over a year ago

@Alan: you're correct. The match was originally different, which did require the \s?s, but was updated thanks to Phil Brown's comment. It can be streamlined a lot now. I will update it again to reflect your input.

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