Question

Here is an example:

$str = '<p>"bla" bla</p>';
$search = '_^<p> *([\w])(.+) *</p>$_i';
$replacement = '<p><span class="first_letter">$1</span>$2</p>';

$new = preg_replace( $search, $replacement, $str );

echo $new."\n";

It works perfectly. But if the given string starts with some kind of special char such as ", ‘, it will remove it.
example $str = '<p>bla bla</p>';

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To sum up I want to put the first letter in this <span> (given above).

Answer 1

Not tested, but try adding \W (capital W) which matches non-word characters instead of matching zero or more spaces in the search string. That should then match your first letter.

$search = '_^<p>\W*([\w])(.+) *</p>$_i';

EDIT: to include special character

put it in brackets to capture it

$search = '_^<p>(\W*)([\w])(.+) *</p>$_i';

or as completed code…

$str = '<p>"bla" bla</p>';
$search = '_^<p>(\W*)([\w])(.+) *</p>$_i';
$replacement = '<p>$1<span class="first_letter">$2</span>$3</p>';

$new = preg_replace( $search, $replacement, $str );

echo $new."\n";