Replace words in a string using multidimensional array of contents

Question

I am using str_replace :

foreach( $languages as $lang ) {
    $html = str_replace( $lang['english'], $lang['german'], $html );
}

The $languages array contains :

$languages = array(array('english'=>'accessories','german'=>'xxxx'),array('english'=>'accessories table','german'=>'yyyyyyyy') );

Now the issue is that it outputs accessories as xxxx and accessories table as xxxxx table instead of outputting accessories table as yyyyyyyy

This is what I would expect it to do, after the str_replace changes it to `xxxx` its no longer what it was. — ArtisticPhoenix, Jan 17 '18 at 01:18
If you try to roll your own localization library you're going to have a *real* bad time. http://php.net/manual/en/book.gettext.php — Sammitch, Jan 17 '18 at 01:33
@AniketSahrawat - some things are just not worth rebuilding. I can see rolling your own template system, even MVC framework. But something like this takes a lot of language knowledge. — ArtisticPhoenix, Jan 17 '18 at 05:26

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 17 '18 at 01:18

0

You should replace the "longest" matched term first.

by rearranging your $languages array, it should solve the problem

$languages = array(array('english'=>'accessories table','german'=>'yyyyyyyy'), array('english'=>'accessories','german'=>'xxxx'));

answered Jan 17 '18 at 01:18

Neverever

What if `$languages` has 1000 elements? – Aniket Sahrawat Jan 17 '18 at 01:39
use custom `uksort` (by length descending) on the `$language` array – Neverever Jan 17 '18 at 01:45
I think `ksort` accepts a flag of int, not a comparator. – Aniket Sahrawat Jan 17 '18 at 01:47
sorry it's `uksort` – Neverever Jan 17 '18 at 01:47
`uksort` is not a better option in the above context, because it sorts array by keys, and those keys are `0`, `1`, `2` in `$languages` and OP should use `$languages[$index]['english']` for sorting. You will need another sorting function. – Aniket Sahrawat Jan 17 '18 at 01:53
ah, forgot about the nested array, `usort` should be sufficient – Neverever Jan 17 '18 at 01:56
Don't worry, happens to all of us :) – Aniket Sahrawat Jan 17 '18 at 01:57

1 Answers1