Re: string function that adds before and after

Philip Olson wrote:

There's a number of functions in PHP that will give me the position of the *first* instance of the matched string, but it doesn't look like the function would keep searching after the first match. Anyway, am I overlooking a function that already has the functionality that I'm searching for? Or does anyone have any ideas how I can accomplish this efficiently since my search strings can be quite long?

try this preg_replace('/(weather)/i', "<strong>$1</strong>", 'This is the worst weather ever. Weather around here is terrible. ')

Thanks Matt. I think that will do the trick. Let me see if I understand it correctly. the "i" will make the search case-INsensitive, and the parenthesis around "weather" will store what it finds in the variable $1? Is that right?

Also consider str_replace() as it's faster albeit case sensitive. str_ireplace() exists in PHP 5. Just another option, I'm surprised you didn't find it when looking around strpos() and friends. Your assumptions above are correct, sorry Matt for stepping in! :) I prefer cold weather. Regards, Philip

Thanks Philip. I did notice str_replace() but it didn't look like I could use it without it actually replacing what it found instead of just adding strings before and after it. Am I wrong?