PHP Find/Replace Multiple Words in String

PHP Simple Function to Perform Unlimited Number of Replacements in a String to Avoid Calling str_replace() Multiple Times

If you have to make multiple replacements in php, you can use str_replace multiple times but this can get pretty code bulky and messy looking if you have more than a few string replacements to perform.

/************************************************************************** FUNCTION TO PERFORM str_replace FUNCTION MULTIPLE TIMES [$arrFind] IS THE ARRAY OF STRINGS TO FIND [$arrReplace] IS THE ARRAY OF WHAT TO REPLACE EACH ITEM WITH IN [$arrFind] [$source] IS THE STRING TO PERFORM MULTIPLE REPLACEMENTS [&$errorstring] BY REFERENCE VARIABLE HOLDS ANY ERRORS ***************************************************************************/ function replace_bulk($arrFind, $arrReplace, $source, &$errorstring = null){ // THERE MUST BE SAME NUMBER OF ITEMS IN [$arrFind] AND [$arrReplace] $num[0] = count($arrFind); $num[1] = count($arrReplace); if($num[0] != $num[1]){ $errorstring = 'same number of elements does not exist in both [$arrFind] and [$arrReplace]'; return false; } $out = $source; for($i = 0; $i < $num[0]; $i++){ $out = str_replace($arrFind[$i], $arrReplace[$i], $out); } return $out; }

Another way to perform multiple replacements in php using str_replace() in combination with the explode() function.

$find = "lets|php|nap"; $replacement = "can we|javascript|break"; $string = "lets do some php coding and then take a nap"; $result = str_replace(explode("|", $find), explode("|", $replacement), $string); echo $result; // can we do some javascript coding and then take a break