Question

I got a slightly tricky preg_replace that I cannot figure out.

The string could be something like 2:456:982:12:89:

Let’s say I want to remove just the “2:” and replace it with nothing.

Here is what I have with $focus_chat being “2”:

preg_replace('/:' . $focus_chat . ':/', ':', $unfocus_chat);

Now, this would work if the 2: was in the middle of the string. The problem with this is that the 2: will not have a : first since it is at the beginning of the string.

Any ideas? Thank you!

Answer 1

You can say: Beginning of string (that is ^) or ::

preg_replace('/(^|:)' . $focus_chat . '(:|$)/', ':', $unfocus_chat);

Also added end of string ($) for the second delimiter.