php preg_replace regex with ? and &

Question

I'm really trying to figure out how to write a preg_replace for this string...

/url/?12345678910&stackoverflow=rocks

...which I want to become...

/url/?_uniqueId_&stackoverflow=rocks

The string contains more ?s and &s, however this is the first occurance of the characters in the string.

I've tried the following, but it doesn't even give me a response:

preg_replace("/\/url\/\?[^)]+\&/","_uniqueId_",$link);

Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

Why don't you use parse_str?

ɴᴀᴛᴇ ᴅᴇᴠ
– ɴᴀᴛᴇ ᴅᴇᴠ

2013-10-09 07:09:13 +00:00
Commented Oct 9, 2013 at 7:09 — ɴᴀᴛᴇ ᴅᴇᴠ
– ɴᴀᴛᴇ ᴅᴇᴠ, Commented Oct 9, 2013 at 7:09

Jerry · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-09 07:34:03Z

1

Did you assign the results of preg_replace to a variable?

$link = '/url/?12345678910&stackoverflow=rocks';
$res = preg_replace("/\/url\/\?[^)]+\&/","/url/?_uniqueId_&",$link);
echo $res;

Also, I added the other parts from the replaced string you missed. The regex could otherwise be changed to:

$res = preg_replace("~/url/\?[^&]+&~","/url/?_uniqueId_&",$link);

Which should be a bit faster, and I used different delimiters to avoid excessive escaping. Also & doesn't need to be escaped.

Or use lookarounds:

$res = preg_replace("~(?<=/url/\?)[^&]+(?=&)~","_uniqueId_",$link);

edited Oct 9, 2013 at 7:34

answered Oct 9, 2013 at 7:07

Jerry

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3 Comments

Mad Marvin Over a year ago

Thanks! Your first example "kinda" works - it replaces from the first ? to the very last &, which destroys the entire link unfortunately. The other two examples I can't get to work at all. Any ideas about the first one, however?

Jerry Over a year ago

@MadMarvin Strange... You could change the first one to /\/url\/\?[^)]+?\&/ to make it work better though.

Jerry Over a year ago

@MadMarvin Oh, I forgot to remove the / from the regex. Both of the 2 last regex should work now.

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