PHP string replace match whole word

php string replace str-replace
NVG picture NVG · Aug 6, 2010 · Viewed 54.1k times · Source

I would like to replace just complete words using php

Example : If I have 

$text = "Hello hellol hello, Helloz";

and I use

$newtext = str_replace("Hello",'NEW',$text);

The new text should look like

NEW hello1 hello, Helloz

PHP returns

NEW hello1 hello, NEWz

Thanks.

Answer

Lethargy picture Lethargy · Aug 6, 2010

You want to use regular expressions. The \b matches a word boundary.

$text = preg_replace('/\bHello\b/', 'NEW', $text);

If $text contains UTF-8 text, you'll have to add the Unicode modifier "u", so that non-latin characters are not misinterpreted as word boundaries:

$text = preg_replace('/\bHello\b/u', 'NEW', $text);

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