Locate string within string using wildcard

[L4DD13]

Hi,

How can I locate a string within a string using a sort of wildcard?

Say i have the following string

"Pellentesque consectetuer __VAR__ ac mauris venenatis vestibulum. __VAR1__ ut lacus.".

How could I search the string for the __xxxx__ parts?

Thanks.

[crmalibu]

Regular expressions are often used for such things, although in this simple example you could just use some of php's string functions.

$subject = 'Pellentesque consectetuer __VAR__ ac mauris venenatis vestibulum. __VAR1__ ut lacus.';
if (preg_match('#Pellentesque consectetuer (.+) ac mauris venenatis vestibulum. (.+) ut lacus.#', $subject, $matches)) {
    print_r($matches);
} 

[L4DD13]

Ah, i should have explained more,

The __xxx__s are going to vary, I just need to be able to locate them and replace them.

[crmalibu]

If they're unique, str_replace()

[Jake Arkinstall]

You could also have some fun with the preg_replace_callback function here.

Say the text is __NAME__ or __AGE__ and it refers to $yourArray['name'] and $yourArray['age']:

<?php
$yourArray = array('name' => 'dave', 'age' = 32);
function getString($matches){
    global $yourArray;
    $match = $matches[1];
    $lmatch = strtolower($match);
    return array_key_exists($lmatch, $yourArray) ? $yourArray[$lmatch] : ('__' . $match . '__');
}
$yourString = "Hey, I'm __AGE__ and my name is __NAME__. Nice name, don't you think?";
$yourString = preg_replace_callback('/__([A-Z\d]+)__/', 'getString', $yourString);
echo $yourString;

You can then add as many array items and text keys as you want.
This can save you from having to manually search for your vars.

[L4DD13]

Hi,

@arkinstall;
Your suggestion may come in handy when I need to replace certain strings with values from my database.

I have my script doing what I want it to do though.

Thanks for your help guys