Preg replace help

[Hyperz]

How about

<?php

function clean($txt)
{
    // remove everything that is not a word, _, -, whitespace or a number
    $result = preg_replace('/[^\w\d\s\-]+/', '', $txt);
    // replace numbers with a space
    $result = preg_replace('/\d+/', ' ', $result);
    // remove words <= 3 chars
    $result = preg_replace('/\b\w{1,3}\b/', '', $result);
    // trim spaces
    $result = preg_replace('/[ ]{2,}/', ' ', $result);
    // trim spaces at the end or beginning of lines
    $result = preg_replace('/[ ]*(\r{0,1}\n)[ ]*/', '$1', $result);
    
    return $result;
}

?>

Grrr PHP

[Mr Happy]

How about

    // trim whitespace at the end or beginning of lines
    $result = preg_replace('/[ ]*(\r{0,1}\n)[ ]*/', '$1', $result); 

This can be just:

$result = trim($result); 

[SJshah]

Yup, seems to work now I used this to trim the spaces from the beginning and the end:

    $result = trim($result); 

But that brings up another problem, there are extra hyphens at the beginning and the end after the numbers/words under 3chars have been deleted. It needs to trim any remaining hyphens from the beginning and end too, before trimming the whitespace. I tried these lines but neither worked:

    $result = trim($result, "-"); 

    $result = preg_replace('/[-]*(\r{0,1}\n)[-]*/', '$1', $result); 

[Hyperz]

trim($result) will not only trim spaces but also newlines (\r \n and others) I think. I'll just leave this for litewarez or someone else who is more familiar with PHP.

[SJshah]

^ that shouldn't be a problem since they are only 1-liner's

thanks for all the help m8


got it down to this:

function clean($txt)
{
    // remove everything that is not a word, _, -, whitespace or a number
    $result = preg_replace('/([^\w\d\s\-]+|\b[\w]{1,3}\b)/', '', $txt);
    // replace numbers with a space
    $result = preg_replace('/\d+/', ' ', $result);
    // remove words <= 3 chars
    $result = preg_replace('/\b[\w]{1,3}\b/', '', $result);
    // trim spaces
    $result = preg_replace('/[ ]{2,}/', ' ', $result);
    $result = trim($result);
    
    return $result;
} 

[Hyperz]

Screw it, bored anyways:

<?php

function clean($txt)
{
    // remove everything that is not a word, _, -, whitespace or a number
    $result = preg_replace('/[^\w\d\s\-]+/', '', $txt);
    // replace numbers with a space
    $result = preg_replace('/\d+/', ' ', $result);
    // remove words <= 3 chars
    $result = preg_replace('/\b\w{1,3}\b/', '', $result);
    // trim spaces
    $result = preg_replace('/[ ]{2,}/', ' ', $result);
    // trim -
    $result = preg_replace('/-{2,}/', '-', $result);
    // trim spaces and - at the end or beginning of lines
    $result = preg_replace('/[ \-]*(\r{0,1}\n)[ \-]*/', '$1', $result);
    
    return $result;
}

?>

FYI, $result = trim($result); doesn't do the same thing as the line you replaced it with.

[SJshah]

Yeah, but this line doesn't seem to work:

    // trim spaces and - at the end or beginning of lines
    $result = preg_replace('/[ \-]*(\r{0,1}\n)[ \-]*/', '$1', $result); 

Since its not trimming the spaces from the ends :/

trim($result) seems to do the trick.

[Hyperz]

<?php

function clean($txt)
{
    // remove everything that is not a word, _, -, whitespace or a number
    $result = preg_replace('/[^\w\d\s\-]+/', '', $txt);
    // replace numbers with a space
    $result = preg_replace('/\d+/', ' ', $result);
    // remove words <= 3 chars
    $result = preg_replace('/\b\w{1,3}\b/', '', $result);
    // trim spaces
    $result = preg_replace('/[ ]{2,}/', ' ', $result);
    // trim -
    $result = preg_replace('/-{2,}/', '-', $result);
    // trim spaces and - at the end or beginning of lines
    $result = preg_replace('/[ \-]*(\r{0,1}\n)[ \-]*/', '$1', $result);
    
    return trim($result, '- \t\n\r\0\x0B');
}

?>

The regex only trimmed spaces where there were new lines, not at the beginning or end of the string (which is what trim does).