Question

Is there anyway to skip the first match when using regex and php.

Or is there some way of achieveing this using str_replace.

Thanks

UPDATE
I am trying to remove all the instances of a string from another string but I want to retain the first occurance e.g

$toRemove = 'test';
$string = 'This is a test string to test to removing the word test';

Ouput string would be:

This is a test string to test to removing the word test

Answer 1

Easy PHP way:

<?php
    $pattern = "/an/i";
    $text = "banANA";
    preg_match($pattern, $text, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
    preg_match($pattern, $text, $matches, 0, $matches[0][1]);
    echo $matches[0];
?>

will give you “AN”.

UPDATE: Didn’t know it was a replace. Try this:

<?php
    $toRemove = 'test';
    $string = 'This is a test string to test to removing the word test';
    preg_match("/$toRemove/", $string, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
    $newString = preg_replace("/$toRemove/", "", $string);
    $newString = substr_replace($newString, $matches[0][0], $matches[0][1], 0);
    echo $newString;
?>

Find the first match and remember where it was, then delete everything, then put whatever was in the first spot back in.