Can I make this code shorter? - php

Question

Is it possible to shorten this code using preg_replace instead of preg_match?
I am using it to remove quoted text from an email body.
Quoted text being when you quote somebody when you reply to an email.
# Get rid of any quoted text in the email body
# stripSignature removes signatures from the email
# $body is the body of an email (All headers removed)
$body_array = explode("\n", $this->stripSignature($body));
$new_body = "";
foreach($body_array as $key => $value)
{
# Remove hotmail sig
if($value == "_________________________________________________________________")
{
break;
# Original message quote
}
elseif(preg_match("/^-*(.*)Original Message(.*)-*/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for date wrote string
}
elseif(preg_match("/^On(.*)wrote:(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for From Name email section
}
elseif(preg_match("/^On(.*)$fromName(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for To Name email section
}
elseif(preg_match("/^On(.*)$toName(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for To Email email section
}
elseif(preg_match("/^(.*)$toEmail(.*)wrote:(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for From Email email section
}
elseif(preg_match("/^(.*)$fromEmail(.*)wrote:(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for quoted ">" section
}
elseif(preg_match("/^>(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Check for date wrote string with dashes
}
elseif(preg_match("/^---(.*)On(.*)wrote:(.*)/i",$value,$matches))
{
break;
# Add line to body
}
else {
$new_body .= "$value\n";
}
}
This almost works, but it keeps the first line "On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:54 PM, Persons Name wrote:"
$body = preg_replace('/(^\w.+:\n)?(^>.*(\n|$))+/mi', "", $body);

Answer 1

There's probably a more elegant way of doing this, but this should work (assuming the regexps are correct):
$search = array(
"/^-*.*Original Message.*-*/i",
"/^On.*wrote:.*/i",
"/^On.*$fromName.*/i",
"/^On.*$toName.*/i",
"/^.*$toEmail.*wrote:.*/i",
"/^.*$fromEmail.*wrote:.*/i",
"/^>.*/i",
"/^---.*On.*wrote:.*/i"
);
$body_array = explode("\n", $this->stripSignature($body));
$body = implode("\n", array_filter(preg_replace($search, '', $body_array)));
// or just
$body = str_replace(
array("\0\n", "\n\0"), '', preg_replace($search, "\0", $body)
);
Edit: As inhan pointed out, the dots in the email addresses (and potentially other special characters) need to be escaped using preg_quote() prior to being inserted into the patterns.