Question

I have been trying to replace a portion of a string if two of more non alphanumeric characters are found.

I have it partly working but can not replace when a underscore is in there.

This is what i am trying.

$str = "-dxs_  s";

$str = preg_replace('/\W{2,}|\_{2,}/', ' ', $str);

reults in -dxs_ s should be -dxs s.

So how do you replace if two or more non alphanumeric characters are found in a string?

Answer 1

Simply

$str = preg_replace('/(\W|_){2,}/', ' ', $str); 

What this is doing is grouping the “non-word or underscore” part and applies the 2+ quantifier to it as a whole.

See it in action.