PHP: how to remove special char(except some) from string

Question

Hello i tried below code using regex

$str =  preg_replace("/[^a-z0-9_]/i", '', 'New_text % *');

//output => New_text

( _ is except char )

all work perfect but when my input string something like in other language(ex Hindi), char in Hindi Lang will also delete.

same as above example

$str =  preg_replace("/[^a-z0-9_]/i", '', 'कपिल शर्मा % * _');

//output => _

how to get: कपिल शर्मा _

is there any mistake in regex or any other way in PHP we can do?

Answer 1

You need to use

'~[^\p{M}\w]+~u'

See the regex demo

It seems that PHP PCRE regex does not match combining marks with \W and /u modifier, so, we need to use the corresponding [^\w] negated character class and add a \p{M} Unicode property (combining marks) there.

See more on Unicode properties here.

Answer 2

Use unicode properties:

$str =  preg_replace("/[^\p{L}\p{N}\p{Z}_]/u", '', 'कपिल शर्मा % * _');

Where

• \p{L} stands for any letter in any language
• \p{N} stands for any digit in any language
• \p{Z} stands for any kind of separator.
• u flag for unicode

Documentation

Answer 3

you can use filter_var

filter_var('your string &% * _',FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING | FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_HIGH);

or if you can smal symbol you can use str_replace

$arrayRequer = array('*','_','^','%');
str_replace($arrayRequer,'',$yourString);