Replacing exact words

Hi guys, below are simple replacing script a word in to another word, or censorship

$word = array(
'google',
'yahoo'
);

$link = array(
'go*gle',
'yah*o'
);

$this->post['message'] = str_ireplace($word, $link, $this->post['message']);

PHP:

the problem its currently also replacing another words like

into

please help how to make it only replacing exact words?
GBU for all that answering

 

Preg_replace along with the word boundary should do the trick:

<?php
$string = 'google yahoo test yahoo';
$find = array('/\bgoogle\b/', '/\byahoo\b/');
$replace = array('go*gle', 'yaho*');
echo preg_replace($find, $replace, $string);

PHP:

 

thank you for replying
where i need to put $this->post['message'] btw?

 

That would take place instead of the original string and takes the results of preg_replace instead of outputting it.