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I have the following problem: I want to replace (in php) a special character, but only if it's between two other characters. It tried to find a solution with with preg_replace but it doesn't work.

I want to replace every ; with a : which is between the " The Examples:

$orig_string= 'asbas;"asd;";asd;asdadasd;"asd;adsas"'

result should be: 

'asbas;"asd:";asd;asdadasd;"asd:adsas"'

I tried several regexes but without any succes...

Two examples i tried: 

$result = preg_replace('(?<=\")(.*)(;)(.*)(?=\")',':', $str);

$result = preg_replace('.*\".*(;).*\"',':', $str);

Can anybody help me?

Thanks a lot

V

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  • Are the texts between two " some special texts that have a special meaning? Therefor @nu11p01n73R 's solution would not work correctly, as it doesn't take in account, that in the first part there could already be a " without a following ; Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 12:06

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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You need not use look arounds here. It can be written as

("[^";]*);([^"]*")

replace with \1:\2

Regex Demo

Test

preg_replace ("/(\"[^\";]*);([^\"]*\")/m", "\\1:\\2", 'asbas;"asd;";asd;asdadasd;"asd;adsas"' );
=> asbas;"asd:";asd;asdadasd;"asd:adsas"

Update:

;(?!(?:"[^"]*"|[^"])*$)

Just replace the matched ; with :

DEMO

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  • :-) not mistakenly. Revert it back if you don't want ... no, don't do that. Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 12:29
  • not the good answer. It's the right answer because your's will fail if more than one semi colons present inside the quotes.. Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 12:31
  • Great, the last one works for me, that was exactly what i'm looking for!! Thank you very much. It seemed to be that i'm not that fimiliar with all regex-Expression as I thought ;) And i tried to access the matches with "$1:$2" and not with double back slash.... Thanks a lot! Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 14:05
  • Hey, your answer helps me a lot and it works fine up to now... I found a possible combination in which this solution doesn't work correctly... I tried to modify your solution to run all variations but without any success.. If you have the following string 'asbas;asd:;asd;asdadasd;"asd:adsas' the regex replace all ; before the double qoutes... i would expect that the regex do nothing. It should only replace the ; within two double quotes. So i hope you can help me again! Thank's a lot. Commented Jul 19, 2015 at 15:49
  • The m pattern modifier is useless if there are no anchors in the pattern -- like ^ or $. Commented Jul 2, 2022 at 12:06
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A simple understandable solution could be the use of preg_replace_callback:

$str = preg_replace_callback('/"[^"]+"/',
       function ($m) { return str_replace(";", ":", $m[0]); },
       $str);

"[^"]+" captures the quoted stuff to $m[0] where ; is replaced by :

See test at eval.in (link will expire soon)

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;(?=[^"]*"(?:[^"]*"[^"]*")*[^"]*$)

Try this.Replace by :.See demo.

https://www.regex101.com/r/bC8aZ4/16

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-1

What about string replace?

str_ireplace(';";', ':";', $orig_string);

asbas;"asd:";asd;asdadasd;"asd;adsas"

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  • In programming there's no one solution for one problem, you give 10 programmers a problem, the approach to the problem will be different with the same results, yet i see you got a thumb down for giving a solution to a problem with a different approach. Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 12:12
  • Your Solution replaces only a semicolon if it is followed by a " and another semicolon, but the second occurence in the example is not replaced, as it follows another pattern. Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 12:23

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