Question

I need to read from either an array or a file (preferably a file so it’d be easy to update) which contains acronyms and synonyms of common words and use that to find and replace in a string. For example, say CBN stands for “Cannot Be Negated”. I need to replace “CBN king” with “Cannot Be Negated king”. How can i do this in PHP?

Answer 1

You could use an INI file to store your translation table like so (translate.ini):

CBN     = "cannot be negated"
TTYL    = "talk to you later"
.
.
.

Read the file into an array like so:

$translate = parse_ini_file( '/path/translate.ini' );

Replace all acronyms with their full versions:

$toTranslate = "This CBN but it's too late so TTYL";
$translated  = str_ireplace( array_keys( $translate ), array_values( $translate ), $toTranslate );

(Please note the use if str_ireplace() to avoid case issues).