preg_replace_callback

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.5, PHP 5, PHP 7)

Perform a regular expression search and replace using a callback

mixed preg_replace_callback ( mixed $pattern, callable $callback, mixed $subject [, int $limit = -1 [, int &$count ]] )

The behavior of this function is almost identical to preg_replace(), except for the fact that instead of replacement parameter, one should specify a callback.

Parameters:

pattern

The pattern to search for. It can be either a string or an array with strings.

callback

A callback that will be called and passed an array of matched elements in the subject string. The callback should return the replacement string. This is the callback signature:

string handler ( array $matches )

You'll often need the callback function for a preg_replace_callback() in just one place. In this case you can use an anonymous function to declare the callback within the call to preg_replace_callback(). By doing it this way you have all information for the call in one place and do not clutter the function namespace with a callback function's name not used anywhere else.

Example #1 preg_replace_callback() and anonymous function

<?php
/* a unix-style command line filter to convert uppercase
 * letters at the beginning of paragraphs to lowercase */
$fp = fopen("php://stdin", "r") or die("can't read stdin");
while (!feof($fp)) {
    $line = fgets($fp);
    $line = preg_replace_callback(
        '|<p>\s*\w|',
        function ($matches) {
            return strtolower($matches[0]);
        },
        $line
    );
    echo $line;
}
fclose($fp);
?>

subject

The string or an array with strings to search and replace.

limit

The maximum possible replacements for each pattern in each subject string. Defaults to -1 (no limit).

count

If specified, this variable will be filled with the number of replacements done.

Returns:

preg_replace_callback() returns an array if the subject parameter is an array, or a string otherwise. On errors the return value is NULL

If matches are found, the new subject will be returned, otherwise subject will be returned unchanged.

Changelog:

5.1.0

The count parameter was added

Examples:

preg_replace_callback() and anonymous function

<?php
/* a unix-style command line filter to convert uppercase
 * letters at the beginning of paragraphs to lowercase */
$fp = fopen("php://stdin", "r") or die("can't read stdin");
while (!feof($fp)) {
    $line = fgets($fp);
    $line = preg_replace_callback(
        '|<p>\s*\w|',
        function ($matches) {
            return strtolower($matches[0]);
        },
        $line
    );
    echo $line;
}
fclose($fp);
?>

preg_replace_callback() example

<?php
// this text was used in 2002
// we want to get this up to date for 2003
$text = "April fools day is 04/01/2002\n";
$text.= "Last christmas was 12/24/2001\n";
// the callback function
function next_year($matches)
{
  // as usual: $matches[0] is the complete match
  // $matches[1] the match for the first subpattern
  // enclosed in '(...)' and so on
  return $matches[1].($matches[2]+1);
}
echo preg_replace_callback(
            "|(\d{2}/\d{2}/)(\d{4})|",
            "next_year",
            $text);
 
?>

The above example will output:

April fools day is 04/01/2003
Last christmas was 12/24/2002

preg_replace_callback() using recursive structure to handle encapsulated BB code

<?php
$input = "plain [indent] deep [indent] deeper [/indent] deep [/indent] plain";
 
function parseTagsRecursive($input)
{
 
    $regex = '#\[indent]((?:[^[]|\[(?!/?indent])|(?R))+)\[/indent]#';
 
    if (is_array($input)) {
        $input = '<div style="margin-left: 10px">'.$input[1].'</div>';
    }
 
    return preg_replace_callback($regex, 'parseTagsRecursive', $input);
}
 
$output = parseTagsRecursive($input);
 
echo $output;
?>