Question

Basically I want PHP to open a config file, search for a string and replace what comes after
The problem that I have in the code that I have created is that it finds the string $db_pass = and is able to replace it… but then in the file there is an extra "password"); line… so i need it to be able to replace the entire line or either cut the rest to be able to delete it.

    $dbFile = 'dbconfig.php';
    $String = "\$db_pass =\"new_password\";\n";
    file_put_contents($dbFile, str_replace("\$db_pass =", $String,    file_get_contents($dbFile)));

dbconfig.php

    <?php
    // Database Constants
    db_pass = "hi";
    db_user = "hssi";
?>

my current script outputs like this
dbconfig.php

       <?php
    // Database Constants
    db_pass = "new_password";
"hi";
    db_user = "hssi";
?>

Answer 1

You want to use a regular expression to replace the whole line, rather than the beginning of the line. preg_replace() is the PHP function for find and replacing with regular expressions.

Sample code to do what you’re looking for would be:

$dbFile = 'dbconfig.php';
$String = '$db_pass = "new_password";';
file_put_contents(
    $dbFile,
    preg_replace('/\$db_pass = "(.*)";/', $String, file_get_contents($dbFile))
);