I want to replace a number of characters in a string, so I have looked at preg_replace:
preg_replace('/xyz/', '', $val);
Yet the above only replaces instances of xyz and not individual characters. Here is an example of what I want to happen:
preg_replace('/xyz/', '', 'xaybzc'); //abc
preg_replace('/xyz/', '', 'xyzabc'); //abc
preg_replace('/xyz/', '', 'abzxyc'); //abc
A pattern is the literal string. For optional you can use a character class or optional values.
preg_replace('/x|y|z/', '', $val);
or
preg_replace('/[xyz]/', '', $val);
what character class you also can use ranges:
preg_replace('/[x-z]/', '', $val);
[]| from the string?
preg_replace('/[\[\]|xyz]/', '', $val); or preg_replace('/\[|\]|\||x|y|z/', '', $val); (I find the character class considerably easier to read/use)
[a\[\]b] or a|\||bAn alternative to preg_replace is str_replace with an array:
str_replace(['x', 'y', 'z'], '', 'xaybzc'); // abc
str_replace(['x', 'y', 'z'], '', 'xyzabc'); // abc
str_replace(['x', 'y', 'z'], '', 'abzxyc'); // abc
If you want to remove [, ] and | as well, simply add them to the array:
$replaceArray = ['x', 'y', 'z', '[', ']', '|'];
str_replace($replaceArray, '', 'x[a]b|cyz'); // 'abc'
