CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpregexcodeigniter
IEnumerable
IEnumerable

Reputation: 3790

Remove unknown contents of a text file in PHP

Is there a way to remove contents (substring) of a text file in PHP.

I know the start and the end of the string to remove, but not everything in between the content

File (routes.php) I want to edit 

I want to keep this text here
# [[[@-100] I also want to remove the comment line here
  I want to remove this text here
# I also want to remove this line  [@-100]]]
I want to keep this line too

So I want to remove the content block that starts with # [[[@-100] and ends with [@-100]]]

Im using codeignighter so I write my file like so

$ROUTE_FILE ='system/routes.php'

$output = file_get_contents($ROUTE_FILE);

$output = $output->remove_substring(...);

$this->write_file($ROUTE_FILE, $output);

Upvotes: 0

Views: 89

Answers (2)

TecBrat
TecBrat

Reputation: 3729

Tested:

$mystring='this is # [[[@-100] not [@-100]]] this string you want';

echo remove_substring('# [[[@-100]','[@-100]]]',$mystring);

function remove_substring($head,$foot,$string){
    $top=reset(explode($head,$string));
    $bottom=end(explode($foot,$string));
    return $top.$bottom;
}

output:

this is this string you want

Here's a version that does not return errors:

Tested:

$mystring='this is # [[[@-100] not [@-100]]] this string you want';

echo remove_substring('# [[[@-100]','[@-100]]]',$mystring);

function remove_substring($head,$foot,$string){
    $top=explode($head,$string);
    $top=reset($top);
    $bottom=explode($foot,$string);
    $bottom=end($bottom);
    return $top.$bottom;
}

Upvotes: 1

zx81
zx81

Reputation: 41838

  • Activate DOTALL mode with `(?s)
  • Escape the [braces] so the engine doesn't confuse them for a character chass
  • Use .*? to match everything between the delimiters.

In php code:

$replaced = preg_replace('~(?s)# \[\[\[@-100\] Start of custom routes.*?# End of custom routes \[@-100\]\]\]~',
                         '', $yourinput);

See the output at the bottom of this demo.

Upvotes: 1

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