CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpregex
Francesco
Francesco

Reputation: 25239

Php: how to remove phone numbers from string?

I'm trying to remove / detect phone numbers from messages between users of my marketplace website (think eBay does something similar) this is the code I'm using:

$string = preg_replace('/([0-9]+[\- ]?[0-9]+)/', '', $string);

BUT... it's too aggressive and it does strip away any number with 2 or more numerals... how can set a limit of say 7 numbers instead?

to be more precise the phone numbers can be any format like

3747657654
374-7657654
374-765-7654
(374)765-7654
etc...(i cannot predict what the users will write depending of their habits)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3809

Answers (4)

Jimbo Jonny
Jimbo Jonny

Reputation: 3579

It is impossible to determine whether a number of X digits (where X is a valid phone number length) is a phone number or something else without some sort of context intelligence happening. A simple regex can't determine the difference between "call me at 3453456" and "call me when you've flown 3453456 miles".

Therefore trying to catch phone numbers without any formatting (just straight digits) with a regex is hopeless, pure and simple. Attempting to do so is only holding you back from finding a regex that can find formatted/semi-formatted numbers. What you should be going for here is "get the obvious and as many others as possible with minimal false positives...but recognize I can't get them all."

For that I'd recommend this:

/1?[ \-]?\(?([0-9]{3})?\)?[ \-]?([0-9]{3})[ \-]([0-9]{4})/g

It should not get the first three, but get all the rest in this list:

no-match: 3747657654
no-match: 444444444444444
no-match: 7657654
match:    374-765-7654
match:    1-374-765-7654
match:    (374)765-7654
match:    (374) 765 7654
match:    765-7654
match:    1 (374) 765 7654
match:    1(374)765 7654

Upvotes: 0

Abude
Abude

Reputation: 2162

Try this regular expression :

/([0-9]+[\- ]?[0-9]{6,})/

changed to match your samples: Regex101

Upvotes: 1

Casimir et Hippolyte
Casimir et Hippolyte

Reputation: 89557

You can try something like this:

$string = preg_replace('/(?<![0-9]|[0-9]-)[0-9](?:[- ]?[0-9]){6}(?!-?[0-9])/', '', $string);

The lookarounds are here to avoid numbers with more than 7 digits, but if you want something more specific, you should provide an example string.

Upvotes: 0

jeroen
jeroen

Reputation: 91734

That would depend on the exact requirements as now you have 1 or more numbers followed by an optional - or space followed by 1 or more numbers again.

If you wanted for example at least 2 numbers before the space or - followed by at least 5 numbers, you could use something like:

$string = preg_replace('/([0-9]{2,}[\- ]?[0-9]{5,})/', '', $string);
                                              ^^^^ Here you can specify mininimum / maximum
                               ^^^^ Here you can specify mininimum / maximum

Upvotes: 0

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