Regular Expression Problem

Discussion in 'PHP' started by Silver89, Mar 8, 2009.

0
  1. #1
    Hi,

    I have a function to change my urls to seo urls however It's changing:

    - to nothing.

    I want it to keep the dash unchanged, what's preventing this?

    	return str_replace(' ', '-', preg_replace('/([^a-z0-9\s]+)/i', '', trim($text)));
    PHP:
     
    Silver89, Mar 8, 2009 IP
  2. SmallPotatoes

    SmallPotatoes Peon

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    #2
    In your preg_replace you don't include the hyphen as one of the allowed characters. You only allow letters, numbers, and whitespace.
     
    SmallPotatoes, Mar 9, 2009 IP
  3. Silver89

    Silver89 Notable Member

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    #3
    How would I allow hyphens aswel?
     
    Silver89, Mar 9, 2009 IP
  4. buldozerceto

    buldozerceto Active Member

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    #4
    This part: /([^a-z0-9\s]+)/i
    replaces any text and number. space with nothing. Thats the problem.
     
    buldozerceto, Mar 9, 2009 IP
    Silver89 likes this.
  5. nabil_kadimi

    nabil_kadimi Well-Known Member

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    #5
    Try this: 
    return preg_replace('/([^a-z0-9-]+)/i', '', trim(str_replace(' ','-',$text))));
    PHP:
    It:
    * Trims
    * replaces spaces by -
    * deletes all non alphanumeric charactars but leaves -

    I didn't run the script so please correct errors
     
    nabil_kadimi, Mar 9, 2009 IP
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  6. SmallPotatoes

    SmallPotatoes Peon

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    #6
    Actually it does the opposite; see the ^ character near the beginning.

    Nabil's solution is closer but it will result in unsightly runs of hyphens in some cases.

    I didn't want to spoon feed, but try this:

    return str_replace(' ', '-', trim(preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9]+/i', ' ', $text)));
    Code (markup):
     
    SmallPotatoes, Mar 9, 2009 IP