Why the following won't work?
<?php
$text = 'Hell looo w orlldddddd!!!!!!!!!';
$sanitized = preg_replace("/(\w|\s)\1{1,}/mi","$1",$text);
echo $sanitized;
?>
The output expected should be : Hel lo w orld!
Thank you
2 Answers
Try this:
$text = 'Hell looo w orlldddddd!!!!!!!!!';
$sanitized = preg_replace('/(\w|\s|.)\\1+/', '$1',$text);
echo $sanitized;
Outputs:
Hel lo w orld!
This is the best you can do with the regex in this case.
17 Comments
Esailija
Expected output is
Helo world!
Bogdan Burym
That is the bast he can ever get. I do not how to explain the regex to remove spaces bitween
Hel and lo and not to remove them bitween lo and wEsailija
Hell lo -> Helo can be explained with l being the same character after whitespace. But yes, in the end, you can't really get Helo world!, but you can do better than Hel lo w orld!Bogdan Burym
Oh, lets wait and see what he will say.. You should better provide your answer if you know how to do that..
Ian Atkin
Regexes are awesome... but they ain't magic! :)
|
You forgot the slash inside the regex:
/(\w|\s)/\1{1,}/mi
3 Comments
Bogdan Burym
/(\w|\s)/\1{1,}/mi - Did you test it? I did. Not working!
alex
I didn't test it, I just found typo in regex. It should have 3 slashes, and \1 can be placed only in second group.
Marek Jalovec
@alex not true, it's usable even in the first one to repeat already found groups:
echo preg_replace('/([:])\1+/', '$1', 'a:b::c'); outputs a:b:c
Helo w orld!. There is ambiguity for the space afterw, since it'sw o, why should the white space be removed altogether in the case ofw o, but not in the case ofo w?