php regex replace slashes and spaces and hyphens

Question

I have fews combinations of strings that I need to bring in to one pattern, that is multiple spaces should be removed, double hyphens should be replaced with single hypen, and single space should be replaced with single hyphen.

I have already tried this expression.

$output = preg_replace( "/[^[:space:]a-z0-9]/e", "", $output );
$output = trim( $output );
$output = preg_replace( '/\s+/', '-', $output );

But this fails in few combinations.

I need help in making all of these combinations to work perfectly:

1. steel-black
2. steel- black
3. steel    black

I should also remove any of these as well \r\n\t.

can you post sample data a your desired output?

Federico Piazza
– Federico Piazza

2014-08-24 16:13:24 +00:00
Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 16:13 — Federico Piazza
– Federico Piazza, Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 16:13

Tom Fenech · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-06 08:13:35Z

6

You could use something like this (thanks for the better suggestion @Robin) :

$s = 'here is  a test-- with -- spaces-and hyphens';
$s = preg_replace('/[\s-]+/', '-', $s);
echo $s;

Replace any number of whitespace characters or hyphens with a single hyphen. You may also want to use trim($s, '-') to remove any leading or trailing hyphens. It would also be possible to do this directly in the regex but I think it's clearer not to.

Output:

here-is-a-test-with-spaces-and-hyphens

If there are additional characters that you would like to remove, you can simply add them into the bracket expression, for example /[()\s-]+/ would also remove parentheses. However, you might prefer to just replace all non-word characters:

$s = 'here is  a test- with -- spaces ( ), hyphens (-), newlines
    and tabs (  )';
$s = trim(preg_replace('/[\W]+/', '-', $s), '-');
echo $s;

This replaces any number of characters other than [a-zA-Z0-9_] with a hyphen and removes any leading and trailing hyphens.

Output:

here-is-a-test-with-spaces-hyphens-newlines-and-tabs

edited Feb 6, 2018 at 8:13

answered Aug 24, 2014 at 16:18

Tom Fenech

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9 Comments

Robin Over a year ago

Is there a reason why you're not directly using preg_replace('/[\s-]+/', '-', $output) ?

Tom Fenech Over a year ago

@Robin for some reason that didn't occur to me...I've edited my answer to use your suggestion, thanks.

Muhammad Shahzad Over a year ago

what about \r\n\t ? i think in my regex [:space:] was removing these?

Muhammad Shahzad Over a year ago

also i need to remove parenthesis from the string as well

Tom Fenech Over a year ago

@Muhammad \s works for those characters as well. I have added to my answer to explain about removing additional characters.

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