converting csv string to a string with spaces instead of commas in php

Question

I'm having a string which is comma seperated like this

$str = "john, alice, mary,joy";

Some are having space after comma and some don't. What I want to do is remove all the commas and make them like this:

$str = "john alic mary joy";

What is the best way to do this in php?

casablanca · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-02 02:44:04Z

3

str_replace is the simplest solution when there is at most one space after the comma:

$str = str_replace(array(', ', ','), ' ', $str);

If there can be multiple spaces, then I would go with the regex solution. (see icktoofay's answer)

answered Jul 2, 2010 at 2:44

casablanca

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casablanca Over a year ago

Regular expressions are always relatively slow, so whenever possible, it's best to use alternatives.

icktoofay · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-02 02:35:49Z

2

Although regular expressions may not be the best way, a simple regular expression such as this could transform that data:

$str = preg_replace("/ *,+ */", " ", $str);

answered Jul 2, 2010 at 2:35

icktoofay

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esafwan Over a year ago

Answer by casablanca and this both are working well. But what will be the best thing to implement? Regex or the other one? Which one is fast? Thanx!

Young · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-02 02:37:51Z

1

echo str_replace(',',' ',str_replace(' ','',$str));

answered Jul 2, 2010 at 2:37

Young

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4 Comments

Steven Over a year ago

I think you got the downvotes because the code feels weird, namely the nesting of the second str_replace. Also, this function call results in more replaces, which has (albeit immaterial unless you're processing thousands of strings) performance implications.

Young Over a year ago

@Steven XU,acturally I do it like this to make it be able to handle more unknown situations,e.g,if OP has more than one space beside comma like , ,` ,`,then it will still work.

esafwan Over a year ago

this doesn't work in my case because sometime there will be name like 'Jim Karry'. But thank you very much.

Young Over a year ago

@esafwan,Sorry for that but then using space as separator may not be a good idea.

Matt Mitchell · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-02 02:39:55Z

1

A non-regex approach:

$str = str_replace(", ", ",", $str); # Remove single space after a comma
$str = implode(' ', explode(',',str));

answered Jul 2, 2010 at 2:39

Matt Mitchell

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