Question

lets say there is something like this

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. "Vestibulum interdum dolor nec sapien blandit a suscipit arcu fermentum. Nullam lacinia ipsum vitae enim consequat iaculis quis in augue. Phasellus fermentum congue blandit. Donec laoreet, ipsum et vestibulum vulputate, risus augue commodo nisi, vel hendrerit sem justo sed mauris." Phasellus ut nunc neque, id varius nunc. In enim lectus, blandit et dictum at, molestie in nunc. Vivamus eu ligula sed augue pretium tincidunt sit amet ac nisl. "Morbi eu elit diam, sed tristique nunc."

to be something like this

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. "Vestibulum interdum dolor nec sapien blandit a suscipit arcu fermentum[dot] Nullam lacinia ipsum vitae enim consequat iaculis quis in augue[dot] Phasellus fermentum congue blandit[dot] Donec laoreet, ipsum et vestibulum vulputate, risus augue commodo nisi, vel hendrerit sem justo sed mauris[dot]" Phasellus ut nunc neque, id varius nunc. In enim lectus, blandit et dictum at, molestie in nunc. Vivamus eu ligula sed augue pretium tincidunt sit amet ac nisl. "Morbi eu elit diam, sed tristique nunc[dot]"

i somehow found a regex to select all the “{sentence}” with "(.)+?" or use them like

regex('"(.)+?"','[sentence]')

but can we do something like replace the dots inside a group?. so i can get the output like above example?

Answer 1

I’m not sure regexps are able to suit your needs on their own.

You should implement an algorithm that replaces nested dots until the string doesn’t contain nested dots anymore.

For example in PHP:

$string = 'He asked "Please." while she answered "No. Or maybe yes."';
var_dump($string);
while(preg_match('/"[^"]*\.[^"]*"/', $string)) {
    $string = preg_replace('/("[^"]*)\.([^"]*")/', '$1[dot]$2', $string);
}
var_dump($string);

which prints:

string 'He asked "Please." while she answered "No. Or maybe yes."' (length=57)
string 'He asked "Please[dot]" while she answered "No[dot] Or maybe yes[dot]"' (length=69)