How To Replace Some Characters With Asterisks - php

Question

I have a simple task to do with PHP, but since I'm not familiar with Regular Expression or something... I have no clue what I'm going to do.
what I want is very simple actually...
let's say I have these variables :
$Email = 'john#example.com'; // output : ****#example.com
$Email2 = 'janedoe#example.com'; // output : *******#example.com
$Email3 = 'johndoe2012#example.com'; // output : ***********#example.com
$Phone = '0821212121'; // output : 082121**** << REPLACE LAST FOUR DIGIT WITH *
how to do this with PHP? thanks.

Answer 1

You'll need a specific function for each. For mails:
function hide_mail($email) {
$mail_segments = explode("#", $email);
$mail_segments[0] = str_repeat("*", strlen($mail_segments[0]));
return implode("#", $mail_segments);
}
echo hide_mail("example#gmail.com");
For phone numbers
function hide_phone($phone) {
return substr($phone, 0, -4) . "****";
}
echo hide_phone("1234567890");
And see? Not a single regular expression used. These functions don't check for validity though. You'll need to determine what kind of string is what, and call the appropriate function.

Answer 2

For e-mails, this function preserves first letter:
function hideEmail($email)
{
$parts = explode('#', $email);
return substr($parts[0], 0, min(1, strlen($parts[0])-1)) . str_repeat('*', max(1, strlen($parts[0]) - 1)) . '#' . $parts[1];
}
hideEmail('hello#domain.com'); // h****#domain.com
hideEmail('hi#domain.com'); // h*#domain.com
hideEmail('h#domain.com'); // *#domain.com

Answer 3

I tried for a single-regex solution but don't think it's possible due to the variable-length asterisks. Perhaps something like this:
function anonymiseString($str)
{
if(is_numeric($str))
{
$str = preg_replace('/^(\d*?)\d{4}$/', '$1****');
}
elseif(($until = strpos($str, '#')) !== false)
{
$str = str_repeat('*', $until) . substr($str, $until + 1);
}
return $str;
}

Answer 4

I create one function to do this, works fine for me. i hope help.
function ofuscaEmail($email, $domain_ = false){
$seg = explode('#', $email);
$user = '';
$domain = '';
if (strlen($seg[0]) > 3) {
$sub_seg = str_split($seg[0]);
$user .= $sub_seg[0].$sub_seg[1];
for ($i=2; $i < count($sub_seg)-1; $i++) {
if ($sub_seg[$i] == '.') {
$user .= '.';
}else if($sub_seg[$i] == '_'){
$user .= '_';
}else{
$user .= '*';
}
}
$user .= $sub_seg[count($sub_seg)-1];
}else{
$sub_seg = str_split($seg[0]);
$user .= $sub_seg[0];
for ($i=1; $i < count($sub_seg); $i++) {
$user .= ($sub_seg[$i] == '.') ? '.' : '*';
}
}
$sub_seg2 = str_split($seg[1]);
$domain .= $sub_seg2[0];
for ($i=1; $i < count($sub_seg2)-2; $i++) {
$domain .= ($sub_seg2[$i] == '.') ? '.' : '*';
}
$domain .= $sub_seg2[count($sub_seg2)-2].$sub_seg2[count($sub_seg2)-1];
return ($domain_ == false) ? $user.'#'.$seg[1] : $user.'#'.$domain ;
}

Answer 5

Output: a******#gmail.com
$email = str_replace(substr($old_email, 1, strlen(explode("#", $old_email)[0])-1), "**********", $old_email);
This is a quick fix to the question above;
It ensures just the first character of the email address as the extension shows up.
You can increase or reduce the number of asterisks depending