PHP - Replace items in a string with corresponding values from an array [duplicate]

Question

I have a string e.g.

$str = "name is: ?, role is: ?";

and I have an array, e.g.

$array = array('John','Carpenter');

I want to replace each ? in the string with the corresponding item in the array, i.e. the first ? gets replaced with John and the second ? gets replaced with Carpenter.

The number of values in the array will always be the same as the number of ? in the string.

I have come up with the following code to do this:

for($i=0;$i<count($array);$i++) {
    $str = preg_replace('/\?/',$array[$i],$str,1);
}

My question is, is this the most efficient way of doing what I want to do? If you know of a method, or more efficient way of doing this, please could you post an answer?

Many thanks.

$str = vsprintf(str_replace('?','%s',$str), $array);

Mark Baker
– Mark Baker

2014-03-20 14:16:13 +00:00
Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 14:16 — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 14:16

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-17 19:52:31Z

2

You should use vsprintf to do that:

$format = "name is: %s, role is: %s";
$array = array('John','Carpenter');

$str = vsprintf($format, $array);

echo $str;
// name is: John, role is: Carpenter

edited Nov 17, 2023 at 19:52

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 20, 2014 at 14:17

Stromgren

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Comments

PleaseStand · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-20 14:37:59Z

1

Use preg_replace_callback(), which for each match calls a user-provided function that can return a different replacement each time:

$i = 0;
$str = preg_replace_callback('/\?/', function ($m) use ($arr, &$i) {
    return $arr[$i++];
}, $str);

answered Mar 20, 2014 at 14:37

PleaseStand

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1 Comment

dewd Over a year ago

perhaps a little overengineered for my purpose? seems the concensus is that vsprintf is what i need. thx for taking the time to answer.

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