Just a simple question. I have a contact form stored in a function because it's just easier to call it on the pages I want it to have.
Now to extend usability, I want to search for {contactform} using str_replace.
Example:
function contactform(){
// bunch of inputs
}
$wysiwyg = str_replace('{contactform}', contactform(), $wysiwyg);
So basically, if {contactform} is found. Replace it with the output of contactform.
Now I know that I can run the function before the replace and store its output in a variable, and then replace it with that same variable. But I'm interested to know if there is a better method than the one I have in mind.
Thanks
To answer your question, you could use PCRE and preg_replace_callback and then either modify your contactform() function or create a wrapper that accepts the matches.
I think your idea of running the function once and storing it in a variable makes more sense though.
Your method is fine, I would set it as a $var if you are planning to use the contents of contactform() more than once.
It might pay to use http://php.net/strpos to check if {contact_form} exists before running the str_replace function.
You could try both ways, and if your server support it, benchmark:
<?php echo 'Memory Usage: '. (!function_exists('memory_get_usage') ? '0' : round(memory_get_usage()/1024/1024, 2)) .'MB'; ?>
you may want to have a look at php's call_user_func() more information here http://php.net/call_user_func
$wysiwyg = 'Some string and {contactform}';
$find = '{contactform}';
strpos($wysiwyg, $find) ? call_user_func($find) : '';
Yes, there is: Write one yourself. (Unless there already is one, which is always hard to be sure in PHP; see my next point.)
Ah, there it is: preg_replace_callback(). Of course, it's one of the three regex libraries and as such, does not do simple string manipulation.
Anyway, my point is: Do not follow PHP's [non-]design guidelines. Write your own multibyte-safe string substitution function with a callback, and do not use call_user_func().
Related
I am having to do:
$sourceElement['description'] = htmlspecialchars_decode($sourceElement['description']);
I want to avoid that redundant mention of the variable name. I tried:
htmlspecialchars_decode(&$sourceElement['description']);
and
call_user_func('htmlspecialchars_decode', &$sourceElement['description']);
That did not work. Is this possible in PHP? Call a function on a variable?
You could create your own wrapper function that takes the variable by reference:
function html_dec(&$str) {$str = htmlspecialchars_decode($str);}
Then call:
html_dec($sourceElement['description']);
The correct solution would be to include that "redundant" variable mention. It's far more readable, and far less confusing that way.
$sourceElement['description'] = htmlspecialchars_decode($sourceElement['description']);
Your way of thinking is good though, you're thinking how to shorten your code, like a true lazy programmer =)
It depends on function. htmlspecialchars_decode() returns the result, it doesn't modify the original variable. And you can do nothing about it.
Most functions in PHP are immutable in mature, i.e. they don't modify the arguments you pass into them. This has a few advantages, one of them being able to use their return value in expressions without side effects.
Here's a generic wrapper you could use to mimic mutable behaviour for any function that takes a single argument:
function applyFn(&$s, $fn)
{
return $s = $fn($s);
}
applyFn($sourceElement['description'], 'htmlspecialchars_decode');
applyFn($sourceElement['description'], 'trim'); // trim string
Mileage may vary :)
I've noticed a lot of PHP functions accept variables like this in any order.
<?php function_name('var8=hi, var2=hello'); ?>
Edit:
Like charles mentioned the string will actually look like this:
<?php function_name('var8=hi&var2=hello'); ?>
If I wanted to write a function like that, how would I do that?
You are just passing that function a string. For it to make any sense of that, it would have to parse the string to split up the key/value pairs. I'm not saying it's the best approach, but if you want to do that, you should use parse_str().
Note that this is not by any means a language feature of PHP, but I am just providing a means to handle what you've shown.
I am confused to as why you have your parameters in quotations.
When you create a function in php you are able to set default values by setting the variable, like so:
<?php
function foo($bar = 'pie')
{
return $bar;
}
echo foo(); // will echo pie
echo foo('bar'); //will output bar
?>
That's not quite a common idiom, but if there is a strong use case and makes your API more usable, why not. Short of using parse_str and the URL-encoded format, you could of course write a mini parser for that.
Pretty simple would also be abusing parse_ini_string for that:
function function_name($paramstr) {
extract(parse_ini_string(strtr($paramstr, ",", "\n")));
You'd probably still want default values; then also needs an array_merge etc.
(The reason this is not widely used is that you end up with only string scalars, and it prohibits the delimiters in the values as well. And not often are an arbitrary number of parameters really useful.)
Is there any fast (regex-based?) method to replace all smileys in a text, each by an unique corresponding identifier? For example, the first occurrence of :) should be replaced by smiley1, the :)) by smiley2 and another occurrence of :) by smiley1 again? Furthermore, the identifyier should be the same using different text for input
Any potential combination of the typical symbols (<5 chars?) such as :;-()&%}{[]D<>30_o should be recognizable.
Can this be done without a generating a large array of all combinations? In case, how?
Are you looking for preg_replace_callback()? You can even use closures in php 5.3. I am not clear on what the objective is, so at this point this is the best I can provide, if you can clarify, then maybe I can see what I can come up with for sample code.
edit, here's an example from the PHP manual. Doesn't help in this case specifically, but if you just change the regex, the function and the string (basically everything, lol), then it will do the job:
<?php
echo preg_replace_callback('/-([a-z])/', function ($match) {
return strtoupper($match[1]);
}, 'hello-world');
// outputs helloWorld
?>
I don't understand why you can't do:
str_replace(":))","<img src=\"smiley1.jpg\">",$STRING)
str_replace(":)","<img src=\"smiley2.jpg\">",$STRING)
etc... seems to be the most simple solution and logical
Obviously, it cannot be done by using such a str_replace. How would you fetch a ":)))" or maybe a "-.-" which is also not present in your list? Enumerating all potential smileys is a hard task, resulting in n!/(n-k)! candidates. Here, in the example provided above n=18 and k=5...
Thus, I'm asking for a way to use a regex - but I don't how to replace each combination of chars which is intended to represent a smiley each time by the same text.
Idea: is it possible to use a callback function in combination with a hash?
Yeah, Tim! That is exactely what came into my mind when writing the last post. So the solution is
<?php
echo preg_replace_callback("/([\)\(\[\]<>#-\.:;*+{}]{2,9})/", function ($match) {
return " ".md5($match[1])." ";
}, ':::-) :-)) nope (yeah) cool:) }:)');
?>
Thanks!
Hai. I was making this simple string class and was wondering if there was a more natural way of doing it.
class Str{
function __construct($str){
$this->value = $str;
$this->length = strlen($str);
..
}
function __toString(){
return $this->value;
}
..
}
so now i have to use it like this:
$str = new Str('hello kitty');
echo $str;
But that doesnt look very 'natural' with the parentheses. So i was wondering if something like this, or similar was possible.
$str = new Str 'hello kitty'; # I dont believe this is possible although this is preferred.
$str = new Str; # get rid of the construct param.
$str = 'value here'; #instead of resetting, set 'value here' to Str::$value??
In the second method, is there a way i could possibly catch that variable bing set again and instead of reseting it, set this to Str::$value ? I have thought around and the closest i could come up to is the __destruct method. but there was no possible way to know how it was being destroyed. Is this possible or am i wasting my time?
Since PHP is loosely typed, there is no natural string class, because the natural way of using strings is, well, by just using them. However, as of PHP5.3 there is an extension in the SPL that provides strongly typed scalars:
http://php.net/manual/en/book.spl-types.php
However, keep in mind that this extension is marked experimental and subject to change. As of now, it is also not available on Windows.
You might also want to try https://github.com/nikic/scalar_objects
This extension implements the ability to register a class that handles the method calls to a certain primitive type (string, array, ...). As such it allows implementing APIs like $str->length().
Also See: https://github.com/alecgorge/PHP-String-Class
A good string class
It's impossible to call functions in PHP without parentheses.
Your next method will change the reference to string.
Why it doesn't look natural to you? It's the same way in Java.
You may find this useful:
php-string
I'm afraid to tell you that you won't have any luck with either of both.
$str = new Str 'hello kitty'; will end up in fatal error and though the second method is valid it doesn't do what you intend but rather reassign a native string.
May I ask why you would want to have a wrapper araound a native type?
I am new to programming and learning with Wordpress.
the_title(); //outputs the title of the page
I want to capture the title of the page into a string variable so I can manipulate it with strtolower and str_replace functions.
The only way I have gotten it to work is with output buffering.
ob_start();
the_title();
$result = ob_get_clean();
echo str_replace(" ","-",strtolower($result));
/*there has got to be an easier way....
i dont fully understand why */
str_replace(" ","-",strtolower(the_title()));
What am I doing wrong?
If what you really are looking for is the wp_title function, the 2nd argument it takes is a boolean on whether or not it should display it or return it. Pass it false so it will return it to the var, then you can do this:
$mytitle = wp_title(null, false);
Otherwise, your only option is to find the function you're looking for and modify the source code.
There is no easier way. Your function does not return the string, it prints it, therefore you will have to use output buffering if you want to capture the output.
It's the difference between f1() and f2() in the following example.
// Returns a string, prints nothing.
function f1() {
return "String";
}
// Prints a string, returns nothing.
function f2() {
echo "String";
}
Wordpress is a HORRIBLE app to learn how to program from. It uses these global functions that "just work" but they do very specific tasks "inside 'The Loop'". As I say, this is a horrible example of what good code should be.
Thankfully (for you) there are other functions that just return the part you're looking for. Rather than me just writing what you need, you can read a full listing here. Take care that you note down which must be within the mythical Loop and which you can use anywhere.
As it happens there are even more ways to get the title, but I was really imagining for this example you would do something like:
$this_post = get_post($post); // I *think* $post is the post ID inside the loop though I could be wrong
echo $this_post->post_title;
But as another poster (correctly) says you can use a fairly simple wp_title() function to grab the current loop title.
This brings me back to perhaps wanting to explain why learning programming from Wordpress is a bad idea. They have so many damned way of doing the same damned thing that it's almost impossible to keep on top of things.
A blog is a really simple set of data (even moreso in WP's case because it isn't fully normalised) but rather than just having one way to output a title <?php echo $post->title; ?> you have umpteen ways, all doing subtly different things.
If you really want to learn how to program (instead of hacking your way around the crap that is the WP internals), creating a simple blog engine is fairly quick and fun... It's certainly how a lot of people get into a new language or framework.
And if you really want to have fun, have a look at Django.
Enough of the Wordpress rant. If you're fighting something like this in the future that doesn't have 100 ways of doing it, I really wouldn't recommend output-buffer-capturing. It uses up a whole buttload of resources for something relatively simple.
The easiest way can be as simple as just taking the source for the original function, sticking it in a new function and replacing the echo with return.
Just note there may be some database connectivity to handle that returning prematurely may break... So if the echo isn't the last statement, instead of returning right there, store the string as a variable and return at the end of the function.
just figured Id share my final solution with you guys.
This was to give my body tags unique id's in wordpress.*/
$title =wp_title(null,false);
echo strtolower(str_replace(' ','-',ltrim($title)));
//without the ltrim() 2 dashes are created before the title.
Almost every 'the_*' function in Wordpress has a 'get_the_*' counterpart. So, you just have to use
echo str_replace(" ","-",get_the_title());
And it's going to work like a charm. there's also get_the_excerpt(), get_the_content() and the_permalink() which somehow breaks the naming convention (God knows how many times I've written "get_the_permalink()" and got frustrated on why it didn't work)
Cheers!