Question

I want to replace all “private function __someMethod()” with “protected function _someMethod().
But I do want to leave the magic ones untouched.
The replacing does not work though.

$x = array(
    '/\bprivate function __([^(construct|destruct|sleep|wakeup|get|set|call|toString|invoke|set_state|clone|callStatic|isset|unset)])\b/i',
    'protected function _\1'
)

\b and \b as word boundaries.

it uses preg_replace($x[0], $x[1]).

thx!

i also tried [^construct^destruct^sleep] etc

the same applies to " $this->__ " and " ::__ " (static call) then, of course.

Answer 1

The [^...] syntax is a negated character class. Everything in square brackets is just a list of characters, the () and the | are not interpreted, and your words get shuffled into a list of letters.

What you wanted to use was a negative assertion (?!....)

  '/\bprivate function __(?!construct|destruct|sleep|wakeup|get|set|call|toString|invoke|set_state|clone|callStatic|isset|unset)\w+\b/i',

It should be followed by \w+ to work for your preg_replacing.