Explode string then parse delimiter for a variable

Question

If I have a string like:

$string = "the year is currently <!--CODE echo date('Y'); CODE-->, it's been a good year."

Where in the above string  were the delimiters and everything in-between the delimiters is taken out of context and made into a string. then implode it back together again but with the delimiters removed and eval() applied to the string made from within the delimiters.

Presumably I should be using explode and implode to split and join the string but how to define and parse the delimiter for a variable as I've described I have no idea about.

If anyone could help me out with this I'd really appreciate it thank you.

EDIT: Perhaps I should be clear on one thing. $string in the example above is a database entry containing HTML and this HTML is echo'd to the end user but before it does, I want to process the database entry for the above mentioned HTML comments and parse the PHP code inside them accordingly. I can not simply store PHP in the database as it is either echoed in the document visible to all or the HTML comments are embedded in the document. I want to parse the database entry for the HTML comments containing PHP code so that I can separate the strings and use eval() on the string containing the PHP code.

use preg_split for splitting the string ??

Avinash Babu
– Avinash Babu

2014-09-27 08:45:42 +00:00
Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 8:45 — Avinash Babu
– Avinash Babu, Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 8:45
@AvinashBabu How would you suggest I use the function?

0x1801ce
– 0x1801ce

2014-09-27 08:55:22 +00:00
Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 8:55 — 0x1801ce
– 0x1801ce, Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 8:55

Boann · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-27 08:50:12Z

1

Like that:

$string = "the year is currently <!--CODE return date('Y'); CODE-->, it's been a good year.";

$string = preg_replace_callback('/<!--CODE(.*?)CODE-->/',
    function($groups) { return eval($groups[1]); },
    $string);

echo $string; // displays: "the year is currently 2014, it's been a good year."

Note that I changed 'echo' to 'return' in the embedded code. If you really need to use echo you would need to use output buffering to capture its output into the string.

answered Sep 27, 2014 at 8:50

Boann

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2 Comments

0x1801ce Over a year ago

Excellent, thanks for that. Just 1 question, do I have to keep the function inline?

Boann Over a year ago

@TimDoyle You don't have to keep it inline; you can use any type of callable reference, although the inline syntax is neatest.

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