How do you replace all numbers in a string with a specific character in PHP?

Question

How would you replace all numbers in a string with a predefined character?

Replace each individual number with a dash "-".

$str = "John is 28 years old and donated $40.39!";

Desired output:

$str = "John is -- years old and donated $--.--!";

I guess it preg_replace()

will be used, but I'm not sure how to target the numbers only.

+3

Damien 02 Apr 17 at 8:50

3 answers

<?php

$str = "John is 28 years old and donated $40.39!";
echo preg_replace("/\d/", "-", $str);

OR

<?php

$str = "John is 28 years old and donated $40.39!";
echo preg_replace("/[0-9]/", "-", $str);

Output: John is -- years old and donated $--.--!

+2

Sahil gulati 02 Apr 17 at 8:55

You can also do it with a normal replacement:

$input   = "John is 28 years old and donated $40.39!";
$numbers = str_split('1234567890');
$output  = str_replace($numbers,'-',$input);
echo $output;

just in case you're wondering. The code has been tested and it works. Output:

John is years old and donated $ --.--!

No need for "obscure" regular expressions. Do you remember where the slash and curly braces go and why?

+1

KIKO Software 02 Apr 17 at 8:57

RomanPerekhrest · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-02T09:02:22+0000

Simple solution using strtr

(to translate all digits) and str_repeat

functions:

$str = "John is 28 years old and donated $40.39!";
$result = strtr($str, '0123456789', str_repeat('-', 10));

print_r($result);

Output:

John is -- years old and donated $--.--!

Alternatively, you can also use array_fill (to create "replace_pairs"):

$str = "John is 28 years old and donated $40.39!";
$result = strtr($str, '0123456789', array_fill(0, 10, '-'));