Question

I use preg_match_all($pattern, $string, $matches) regularly on data, and basically, I always need to remove either £0.00 or $0.00 or €0.00 from the array should it be in there.

I never know the position within the array that it will be in, if at all.

I’ve tried unset($matches['£0.00']) and unset($matches[0]['£0.00']) but didn’t work

Also, can it be done without using the actual currency symbol and maybe regex \p{Sc}

So, summary, I have an array of numbers with currency symbols, and need to remove any zero entries.

sample array:

Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => £18.99 [1] => £0.00 [2] => £0.00 [3] => £0.00 ) ) 

Is this possible?

Answer 1

The usage of preg_match() and preg_match_all() sometimes can be weird

$matches will be array of the matches to the pattern – in this instance if you

preg_match("/\p{Sc}0\.00/","£0.00",$matches);
//$matches[0] => £0.00

or if you add parenthesis () to the pattern you can extract a part

preg_match("/\p{Sc}(0\.00)/","£0.00",$matches);
//$matches[0] => £0.00
//$matches[1] => 0.00

so to solve this problem try this

foreach($sample_array as $key => $value)
{
     if(preg_match("/(\$|\p{Sc})0\.00/",$value))
     {
          unset($sample_array[$key]);
     }
}

Notice the pipe | that denotes $ or £ – if you add another pipe for the euro symbol it will capture that as well – also notice that we are unset()-ing a key in the original array instead of unset()-ing the $matches array