Question

I’m almost there!

Here is the string I am trying to adjust, and my preg_replace attempt.

$description_string = '<p>Here is the test link: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFn8L9tIrg" target="_blank">“Man or Muppet”</a> with other text afterwards.</p>';

$description = preg_replace( '/(<a[^>]+youtube[^>]*>)+[^"]*(<\/a>)+/', '$0Watch This Video$2', $description );

The result I’m getting is incorrect:

Here is the test link: “Man or Muppet”Watch This Video with other text afterwards.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! THanks!

Answer 1

Well, not sure if you are trying to get the actual title in there. But here is what I came up with:

<?php
$description_string = '<p>Here is the test link: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFn8L9tIrg" target="_blank">\'Man or Muppet\'</a> with other text afterwards.</p>';

$description = preg_replace( '/(<a[^>]+youtube[^>]*>)+[^"]*(<\/a>)+/', '$1Watch This Video$2', $description_string );

echo $description;
?>

Result:

<p>Here is the test link: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFn8L9tIrg" target="_blank">Watch This Video</a> with other text afterwards.</p>

Your biggest issue was with the quotes (“) being in the title. It is cutting off the anchor tags. While using $0 is also incorrect. You’ll need to use $1.

This may not be exactly what you need, but its a quick monkey patch for you.