I am very new to using preg_replace and such so please bear with me.
I have few hundreds line that contains this line
<strong>[*<a title="*" name="*"></a>]</strong><br /> Lorem ipsum
* on above code denotes that number such as 1,2,3
What i want to achieve is that
*. Lorem Ipsum
Example, 1. Lorem ipsum, 2. Lorem ipsum
What would be the best way to achieve it? Thanks.
sample text
<strong>[1<a title="1" name="1"></a>]</strong><br /> Lorem ipsum 12345<br /> <strong>[2<a title="2" name="2"></a>]</strong><br /> lorem ipsum asdasd<br /> <strong>[3<a title="3" name="3"></a>]</strong><br /> lorem ipsum asdsadasdasdasd<br />
it goes way up to hundreds
How about:
$output = preg_replace('~^<strong>\[(\d+)<.*?<br\s*/>~', '$1. ', $input);
explanation:
~ : regex delimiter
^ : start of line
<strong> : <strong> as is
\[ : an open square bracket
(\d+) : capture one or more digits
<.*? : > followed by any number of any char
<br\s*/> : <br/> or <br />
~
And replace all that match by the first captured group (ie. the digits) followed by a dot and a space.
Edit according to comments:
$input = '<strong>[1<a title="1" name="1"></a>]</strong><br /> Lorem ipsum 12345<br /> <strong>[2<a title="2" name="2"></a>]</strong><br /> lorem ipsum asdasd<br /> <strong>[3<a title="3" name="3"></a>]</strong><br /> lorem ipsum asdsadasdasdasd<br />';
$output = preg_replace('~\s*<strong>\[(\d+)<.*?<br\s*/>(.*?)(?:<br />|$)~', "$1. $2
", $input);
echo $output,"
";
output:
1. Lorem ipsum 12345
2. lorem ipsum asdasd
3. lorem ipsum asdsadasdasdasd
One method would be to use preg_replace_callback() and create a function to increment a variable and substitute the * with the current value of that variable (though I think you may have to use a global variable for this, which is generally considered bad practice).
Outside of that, I think you'd have to do it iteratively (i.e. in a loop).
$x=1;
$result = preg_replace_callback (
'%<strong(.*?)strong><br.?/>.?(.*?)
%sim'
, create_function(
'$matches,$x',
'return $x++.$matches[1];'
), $input );
Something like this