Any way to shorten this preg_match?

[instaunt]

I currently have a code like this:

$insert = "how are you today? nice to see you again. here is your login ";
$wwwcheck = $nameinput;
if(preg_match("/name1|name2|name3|name4/i", $nameinput)) {
$tpl = str_replace('name1 ', $insert . '<a href="/folder/name1/">name1</a> ', $tpl);
$tpl = str_replace('name2 ', $insert . '<a href="/folder/name2/">name2</a> ', $tpl);
$tpl = str_replace('name3 ', $insert . '<a href="/folder/name3/">name3</a> ', $tpl);
$tpl = str_replace('name4 ', $insert . '<a href="/folder/name4/">name4</a> ', $tpl);
}

which has 60 lines and is only going to keep getting bigger. Is there anyway to shrink the principal down to a single line?

e.g.

$insert = "how are you today? nice to see you again. here is your login ";
$wwwcheck = $nameinput;
if(preg_match("/name1|name2|name3|name4/i", $nameinput)) {
$tpl = str_replace('$name ', $insert . '<a href="/folder/$name/">$name</a> ', $tpl);
}

Really struggling.

Thanks
Mike

[felgall]

Not tested but something along the lines of the following should work:

$insert = "how are you today? nice to see you again. here is your login ";
$wwwcheck = $nameinput;
$tpl = preg_replace("/(name[1-4])/i", $insert . '<a href="/folder/$1/">$1</a> ',$nameinput);

[gvre]

I don't know what the $tpl variable contains but I think that the following code will help you.

PHP Code:

if (preg_match('/^name\d+$/i', $nameinput))
        $tpl = preg_replace('/\b' . $nameinput . '\b/i', $insert . '<a href="/folder/' . $nameinput . '/">' . $nameinput . '</a> ', $tpl); 


[instaunt]

$temp_page = preg_replace("/name1|name2|name3|name4/i", '<a href="/folder/$1/">$1</a> ',$temp_page);

did not work. even:

$temp_page = preg_replace("/name1|name2|name3|name4/i", $1,$temp_page);

did not work.

if (preg_match('/^name\d+$/i', $nameinput))
$tpl = preg_replace('/\b' . $nameinput . '\b/i', $insert . '<a href="/folder/' . $nameinput . '/">' . $nameinput . '</a> ', $tpl);

did nothing either.

Here is a simplified/explanatory version of what I want to do:

$temp_page = preg_replace("/manchester|leeds|bradford|london/i", '<a href="/folder/$1/">$1</a> ',$temp_page);

Which results in every instance of "Manchester" or "Leeds" in the $temp_page section becoming:

<a href="/folder/manchester/">Manchester</a>
<a href="/folder/leeds/">Leeds</a>

[felgall]

Originally Posted by instaunt

$temp_page = preg_replace("/name1|name2|name3|name4/i", '<a href="/folder/$1/">$1</a> ',$temp_page);

did not work. even:

$temp_page = preg_replace("/name1|name2|name3|name4/i", $1,$temp_page);

did not work.

Neither of those worked because you didn't define $1 by wrapping the part of the regular expression you want to substitute inside of () like this:

preg_replace("/(name1|name2|name3|name4)/i", '<a href="/folder/$1/">$1</a> ',$temp_page)

[instaunt]

Originally Posted by felgall

Neither of those worked because you didn't define $1 by wrapping the part of the regular expression you want to substitute inside of () like this:

preg_replace("/(name1|name2|name3|name4)/i", '<a href="/folder/$1/">$1</a> ',$temp_page)

thank you!

Any way to get the URl $1 to be lowercase? I've tried sticking strtolower in there in various forms, but it just breaks the code. Is the $1 usage causing a problem doing anything else with it?

Thanks again
Mike

[gvre]

You could convert every name to lowercase before the preg_replace. One other option is to use the preg_replace_callback function (check the following code).

PHP Code:

// needs php >= 5.3.0
$tpl = preg_replace_callback('/\b(name1|name2|name3|name4)\b/i', function($m) use ($insert) { return $insert . '<a href="/folder/' . strtolower($m[0]) . '/">' . $m[0] . '</a> '; }, $tpl); 


[Dormilich]

btw, str_replace() also accepts arrays as input.