Question

Is there an easy way to substitute a/an in a string to agree with the following word – much the same as the way ‘S’ works in Date format?

e.g.

$apple = 'apple';
$pear = 'pear';
echo "This is a $apple, this is a $pear."

--> This is an apple, this is a pear

Answer 1

Try this :

$l = array('a apple is a fruit', 'a banana is also a fruit');

foreach($l as $s) {
  $s = preg_replace('/(^| )a ([aeiouAEIOU])/', '$1an $2', $s);
  echo $s,"\n";
}

output:

an apple is a fruit
a banana is also a fruit