Question

So I have the following string.

      John Hotmail([e-mail]) , John Hotmail([e-mail]) ,

I am trying replace only the first instance of the above John Hotmail however no matter what I try it replaces both. I have looking through the forums for an answer and I have already attempted all of the solutions. I have tried the following.

    $string= "/John Hotmail([e-mail]) ,/";
   //$string= "John Hotmail([e-mail]) ,";
    $count = 1;
    $descriptionMessage = $name . ' said hello' . $model->Name . ' to the following people:' . $listParticipants;
    $descriptionMessage = preg_replace($string, "", $descriptionMessage,$count);

I have tried similar things with str_replace. I have changed the string message to contain / as well as to have no / in it. I have put count to 0 in which case it does not strip anything out and I have put it to 1 as above which removes both John Hotmail strings. None of the settings I have entered have just removed the first occurance however and I do not know why. I am currently using this code in a controller class of the Yii Framework if that helps. Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

This will replace the first occurrence:

$string = 'John Hotmail([e-mail]) ,';
$descriptionMessage = 'John Hotmail([e-mail]) , John Hotmail([e-mail]) ,';

$position = strpos($descriptionMessage, $string);
if ($position !== false) {
    $descriptionMessage = substr_replace($descriptionMessage, '', $position , strlen($string));
}