Question

I am trying to write a function that filteres everything from an input to only letters and the symbol “-“. I want that symbol since the input contains names, and someone may be called Jean-Paul, this is my current code:

if(!preg_match('/^\[a-zA-Z]+$/',$string)) {
 // Containing something other than a-z and A-Z
}

$string = 'Jean-Paul'; now gives that the string contains illegal characters, but how can I do so that it accepts “-” ?

Answer 1

If by “filter” you mean delete unwanted characters, then use

$s = preg_replace("/[^a-z-]/i", "", $s);

or

$s = preg_replace("/[^a-z-]/i", "", iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT//IGNORE', $s));