php regex replace each character with asterisk - php

Question

I am trying to something like this.
Hiding users except for first 3 characters.
EX)
apple -> app**
google -> goo***
abc12345 ->abc*****
I am currently using php like this:
$string = "abcd1234";
$regex = '/(?<=^(.{3}))(.*)$/';
$replacement = '*';
$changed = preg_replace($regex,$replacement,$string);
echo $changed;
and the result be like:
abc*
But I want to make a replacement to every single character except for first 3 - like:
abc*****
How should I do?

Answer 1

Don't use regex, use substr_replace:
$var = "abcdef";
$charToKeep = 3;
echo strlen($var) > $charToKeep ? substr_replace($var, str_repeat ( '*' , strlen($var) - $charToKeep), $charToKeep) : $var;
Keep in mind that regex are good for matching patterns in string, but there is a lot of functions already designed for string manipulation.
Will output:
abc***

Answer 2

Try this function. You can specify how much chars should be visible and which character should be used as mask:
$string = "abcd1234";
echo hideCharacters($string, 3, "*");
function hideCharacters($string, $visibleCharactersCount, $mask)
{
if(strlen($string) < $visibleCharactersCount)
return $string;
$part = substr($string, 0, $visibleCharactersCount);
return str_pad($part, strlen($string), $mask, STR_PAD_RIGHT);
}
Output:
abc*****

Answer 3

Your regex matches all symbols after the first 3, thus, you replace them with a one hard-coded *.
You can use
'~(^.{3}|(?!^)\G)\K.~'
And replace with *. See the regex demo
This regex matches the first 3 characters (with ^.{3}) or the end of the previous successful match or start of the string (with (?!^)\G), and then omits the characters matched from the match value (with \K) and matches any character but a newline with ..
See IDEONE demo
$re = '~(^.{3}|(?!^)\G)\K.~';
$strs = array("aa","apple", "google", "abc12345", "asdddd");
foreach ($strs as $s) {
$result = preg_replace($re, "*", $s);
echo $result . PHP_EOL;
}

Answer 4

Another possible solution is to concatenate the first three characters with a string of * repeated the correct number of times:
$text = substr($string, 0, 3).str_repeat('*', max(0, strlen($string) - 3));
The usage of max() is needed to avoid str_repeat() issue a warning when it receives a negative argument. This situation happens when the length of $string is less than 3.