removing a word from a url using regex in php

Question

This is my if statement that will take this example href from the source code:

href="/toronto/2013/05/14/the-airborne-toxic-event/4296/"

from the source code

if ($text=preg_match('/href="([^"]*)"/', $text, $matches))
{
    $output=$matches[1];
    return $output;
}

and return

/toronto/2013/05/14/the-airborne-toxic-event/4296/

I am trying to return that url without either "/toronto" or "/toronto/" (I'm not sure which one I will need)

If you could show me the regex expression that would do that I would really appreciate it. Thanks

Consider using str_replace instead of a regular expression. This use case is simple enough that it's not really needed. — pauljz
– pauljz, Commented May 14, 2013 at 15:23

Joseph Silber · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-14 15:22:21Z

1

return preg_replace('~^/?toronto/~', '', $output);

If you're sure that "toronto/" does not appear anywhere else in the string, you can use str_replace:

return str_replace('/toronto', '', $output);

This assumes there'll always be a leading slash.

answered May 14, 2013 at 15:22

Joseph Silber

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