How to replace same instance of string in a string with an array?

Question

$replaces = array('replace 1', 'replace thing 2', 'third replace');

$string = '{REPLACEME} sfsfsdfsdf {REPLACEME} sdfopjsd {REPLACEME} sdfsdf {REPLACEME}';

What is the easiest way to replace each successive {REPLACEME} with the matching replace?

If there are more {REPLACEME} than replaces, it should not touch the extra {REPLACEME}'s.

So the output I would want with my example is:

replace 1 sfsfsdfsdf replace thing 2 sdfopjsd third replace sdfsdf {REPLACEME}

CrayonViolent · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-01 14:43:54Z

8

foreach($replaces as $rep) {
  $string = preg_replace('~\{REPLACEME\}~',$rep,$string,1);
}

answered Feb 1, 2011 at 14:43

CrayonViolent

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2 Comments

Gumbo Over a year ago

Note that with every iteration of the foreach the whole string is searched for {REPLACEME}. If your replacement does also contain that string it gets replaced.

fooquency Over a year ago

The replacement string is corrupted if it includes a backslash. According to the PHP manual, "To use backslash in replacement, it must be doubled". Therefore, in the example $string in the above should be str_replace ('\\', '\\\\', $string)

Gumbo · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-01 14:48:09Z

2

this might be a quick idea:

$replaces = array('replace 1', 'replace thing 2', 'third replace');
$string = '{REPLACEME} sfsfsdfsdf {REPLACEME} sdfopjsd {REPLACEME} sdfsdf {REPLACEME}';
$sampler = explode('{REPLACEME}',$string);
foreach($sampler as $k=>$v){
 if(isset($replaces[$k])) {
     $sampler[$k] .= $replaces[$k]
 } else {
  $sampler[$k] = '{REPLACEME}' //or whatever
 }
}
$final = implode("",$sampler);
//it's ok for not so long strings or at least not to many {REPLACEME}

edited Feb 1, 2011 at 14:48

Gumbo

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answered Feb 1, 2011 at 14:45

Catalin Marin

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:13:16Z

Similar to Catalin Marin’s proposal but without the need to check whether there are enough replacement strings:

$parts = explode('{REPLACEME}', $string, count($replaces)+1);
for ($i=0, $n=count($parts); $i<$n; $i++) {
    $parts[$i] .= $replaces[$i];
}
$string = implode('', $parts);

If you need a regular expression for the search, you can use preg_split instead of explode.

The advantages of this solution in opposite to calling str_replace/preg_replace multiple times consecutively are:

$string is only searched once for occurrences of {REPLACEME} (only count($replaces) at most)
{REPLACEME} does not get replaced if it appears in a previous replacement of $replaces.

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