How to remove 'em' dash from a string?

Question

I've looked at other solutions here and here, but it's not working for me.

Code

$s1clean = 'ALIEN - FILM - MOVIE – PSP – Sony - Boxed & Complete';
echo $s1clean;
echo "<br><br>";

// Remove dash
$s1clean = str_replace('-', '', $s1clean);

// Remove em dash
$em_dash = html_entity_decode('&#x2013;', ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8');
$s1clean = str_replace($em_dash, '', $s1clean);

$em_dash2 = html_entity_decode('&#8212;', ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8');
$s1clean = str_replace($em_dash2, '', $s1clean);

$s1clean = str_replace('\u2014', '', $s1clean);

echo $s1clean;
echo "<br><br>";

Output

"ALIEN FILM MOVIE – PSP – Sony Boxed & Complete"

How do I remove this character?

More explanation about types of dashes, endash is the short one, emdash is the long one - > Do not mistake the em dash (—) for the slightly narrower en dash (–) or the even narrower hyphen (-). Those marks serve different purposes and are further explained in other sections. [link](http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html) — Mousey, Aug 14 '15 at 22:48

Script47 · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-16T13:20:09.840

13

This specifies an array of possible removals,

$s1clean = 'ALIEN - FILM - MOVIE – PSP – Sony - Boxed & Complete';

$s1clean = str_replace(["-", "–"], '', $s1clean);

echo $s1clean;

When ran,

Ouput

ALIEN FILM MOVIE PSP Sony Boxed & Complete

I simply copied the weird dash and added it with the actual dash possibility and it worked.

Reading Material

str_replace

edited Feb 16 '18 at 13:20

answered Aug 14 '15 at 22:11

Script47

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Thank you, but when I copy it into my editor it converts it to a dash, so I cannot do that trick. – user3314053 Aug 14 '15 at 22:16
@user3314053 I'm not sure how to respond to that. I don't know why an editor would change it, I can only suggest what the above comment said. – Script47 Aug 14 '15 at 22:20
1

ok, it looks the same in the editor, but it's a different character. So I tried again and it did work. – user3314053 Aug 14 '15 at 22:35
@user3314053 glad I could help. – Script47 Aug 14 '15 at 22:35
1

@user3314053 a fixed width font for editing would do that. It looks only slightly different on SO. – Mousey Aug 14 '15 at 22:43

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 23 '15 at 13:58

The above didn't work for me but this did:

$s1clean = str_replace(chr(151), '', $s1clean); // emdash

Note: for endash use

$s1clean = str_replace(chr(150), '', $s1clean); // endash

from Jay: http://php.net/manual/en/function.str-replace.php#102465

Mousey · Answer 3 · 2015-08-15T01:22:46.017

2

Your dashes are a mix of long dash – and hypen-minus (short dash) - -if you view your code and the title in a different font you will see the difference.

There are 2 short dashes at the start that your code removes, and some long dashes later that it doesn't remove.

Adding this will fix it (this is a different dash even if it doesn't look like one):

$s1clean = str_replace('–', '', $s1clean);

Edit

Alternatively duplicate the 2013 code line but use the hyphen-minus's code 002D instead of 2013:

 $em_dash = html_entity_decode('&#x002D;', ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8');

If you edit in a fixed width font both appear the same, but are not.

edited Aug 15 '15 at 01:22

answered Aug 14 '15 at 22:17

Mousey

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`Alternatively duplicate the 2013 code line but use the other dash's code 2014 instead of 2013`. What makes you assume the given character '–' is the `—` entity ? This is a wrong assumption. – Halim Qarroum Aug 14 '15 at 22:33
@HalimQarroum it's not an assumption, see the link I posted with the Hex and Decimal codes. – Mousey Aug 14 '15 at 22:42
No. Interpreted as `UTF-8`, the character posted by the OP is the character 'EN DASH' (U+2013), known as the `–`entity, or `–`. You can compare them here http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2013/browsertest.htm. – Halim Qarroum Aug 14 '15 at 22:50
Yes absolutely. But I was referring about the character in the initial string literal `$s1clean`. You are right that the code of the OP is confusing and misleading, and also happens to be incorrect since he is not consistently replacing the same character (`\u2014` is different from `EN DASH` (U+2013)). – Halim Qarroum Aug 14 '15 at 23:11
Where do you see an `EM DASH` ? – Halim Qarroum Aug 14 '15 at 23:51
No, that's an `EN DASH`. Try something like this [UTF-8 resolver](http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~richard/utf-8.cgi) by pasting one of the "long dashes", you will see that it'll resolve an `EN DASH`. [See the result here](http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~richard/utf-8.cgi?input=%E2%80%93&mode=char) – Halim Qarroum Aug 15 '15 at 00:56
1

@HalimQarroum it was a `HYPHEN-MINUS` rather than a mix of `EN DASH and `EM DASH` - thanks for pointing out the issue (although at first I thought you were saying both dashes were the same characters). I've updated my answer. Deleting some old comments here to avoid chat. – Mousey Aug 15 '15 at 01:24

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 14 '17 at 00:01

This one works for me

$title = "Hunting, Tactical & Outdoor Optics eCommerce Store ΓÇô $595,000 ΓÇö SOLD";
$title = str_replace(html_entity_decode('&ndash;', ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8'), '-', $title);
$title = str_replace(html_entity_decode('&mdash;', ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8'), '-', $title);

How to remove 'em' dash from a string?

4 Answers4