Question

I have written this JavaScript that calculate words, but I am unable to convert this JavaScript code to PHP regular expression. Can anyone help me with following code?

return str.replace(/\&\w+;/ig,"")
        .replace(/lt;/g, "<")
        .replace(/gt;/g, ">")
        .replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,"")
        .replace(/^[^A-Za-z0-9-\']+/gi, "")
        .replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9-\']+/gi, " ")
        .split(" ")
        .length - 1;

Answer 1

PHP does not have a g flag, the closest equivalent is using /is with the replace $limit set to null (all).

After that just explode it by ” “.

e.g.

$search = array
(
    '/\&\w+;/is',
    '/lt;/s',
    '/gt;/s',
    '/(<([^>]+)>)/is',
    '/^[^A-Za-z0-9-\\\']+/is',
    '/[^A-Za-z0-9-\\\']+/is'
);

$replacements = array
(
    '',
    '<',
    '>',
    '',
    '',
    '',
);

$input = preg_replace($search, $replacements, $input);
$words = explode(' ', $input);
$wordCount = count($words) - 1;

It’s pretty late and I haven’t double-checked this. Hope it helps.

---

Edit: please be careful with escaping the backslash and single-quote.