php str_replace with regular expression

Question

I have some text that i need to delete fron code and i using much variants like this:

$answer = str_replace('<td style="background-color:#80F9CC;">', '', $answer);
$answer = str_replace('<td style="background-color:#E1E3E4;">', '', $answer);
$answer = str_replace('<td style="background-color:#D1D3D4;">', '', $answer);
$answer = str_replace('<td style="background-color:#73F6AB;">', '', $answer);
$answer = str_replace('<td style="background-color:#3CEB88;">', '', $answer);

Is there way to create one str_replace function that will delete this text with some regular expression?

Im just wondering about your end goal here.. if you replace your opening <td> with a blank '' then you are left with a close </td> tag without its opening tag, leading to bad HTML. Is this really what you want? — CodeGodie
– CodeGodie, Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 15:11

axiac · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-27 15:22:46Z

7

preg_replace() is the function you need.

Assuming you want to identify and replace the hex representations of colors, the code is something along the lines:

$answer = preg_replace('/<td style="background-color:#[0-9A-F]{6};">/i', '', $answer);

The i PCRE modifier tells preg_replace to ignore character cases.

It identifies and replaces only when the color code contains exactly 6 hex digits. In order to make it identify color codes using the 3-digit RGB notation you need to change the [0-9A-F]{6} part of the regexp to [0-9A-F]{3}([0-9A-F]{3})?. Or use a simpler expression that matches all color codes between 3 and 6 digits: [0-9A-F]{3,6}

You could also put \s* after the colon (:) to make it also match when one or more whitespaces are present after the background-color: part.

The updated code is:

$answer = preg_replace(
    '/<td style="background-color:\s*#[0-9A-F]{3,6};">/i', '', $answer
);

However, if you want to match only some colors then you can put the color codes separated by | instead:

$answer = preg_replace(
    '/<td style="background-color:\s*#(80F9CC|E1E3E4|D1D3D4|73F6AB|3CEB88);">/i',
    '',
    $answer
);

Short explanation of the regular expression pieces:

<td style="background-color:    # plain text, matches if exact
\s*                             # matches zero or more (*) space characters (\s)
#                               # plain text, matches exactly one '#'
(                               # start of a group, doesn't match anything
     80F9CC                         # matches '80F9CC'
    |E1E3E4                         # or (|) 'E1E3E4'
    |D1D3D4                         # or 'D1D3D4'
    |73F6AB                         # or ...
    |3CEB88                         # or ...
)                               # end of the group    
;">                             # plain text; matches exactly this text

edited Jan 27, 2016 at 15:22

answered Jan 27, 2016 at 15:07

axiac

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5 Comments

Nikita TSB Over a year ago

Thanks! Perfect solution:)

CodeGodie Over a year ago

Does this match the specific colors he has? or is it all colors with 6/3 digits?

axiac Over a year ago

It matches all the colors.

CodeGodie Over a year ago

Gotcha, so I guess this would work perfectly if you want to remove all colors from the attributes, but not specific colors.

CodeGodie Over a year ago

Now its perfect. Awesome breakdown.

Mark Baker · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-27 15:09:18Z

3

str_replace() can take an array as an argument:

$replace_array = [
    '<td style="background-color:#80F9CC;">',
    '<td style="background-color:#E1E3E4;">',
    '<td style="background-color:#73F6AB;">',
    '<td style="background-color:#3CEB88;">',
];

$answer = str_replace($replace_array, '', $answer);

or you could use a preg_replace() instead

answered Jan 27, 2016 at 15:09

Mark Baker

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