php preg_replace not working like expected

Question

I've got the following code:

<?php
    $test = "xxxx..AAA?!";
    echo $test."\n";
    $test = preg_replace("[^a-zA-Z0-9-]", "", $test);
    echo $test."\n";
?>

I want to delete all chars which aren't letters, numbers or a minus

What's my mistake?

Yes Barry · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-26 20:34:19Z

4

delimiter is missing

$test = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]/', '', $test); 
echo $test . "\n";

Additionally, I recommend using PHP_EOL instead of "\n" for newline characters.

answered Nov 26, 2011 at 20:34

Yes Barry

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1 Comment

note: if you use: $test = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]+/', '', $test); it will be faster because it need to do less operations