[SOLVED] Replace string unknown, whilst maintaing another unknown

[unxposed]

I have many stings being created on my site such as:

 

<a href="some/unknown/path/here.file">unknown_filename.file</a>

 

But I want to replace the 'unknown_filename.file' between the a tags with 'Download', but keep everything else.

 

$old_string = '<a href="some/unknown/path/here.file">unknown_filename.file</a>';
$new_string = preg_replace("/(>)(.*)(</a>)/", ">Download</a>", $download_old);

 

This is as far as I've got... but it's obviously not working at all. Could anybody help me? Thanks!

[unxposed]

I suppose I only actually need a way to get the link in the anchor tags... but still don't know how to do this  ???

[thebadbad]

Your regex is almost right (for your first request). You should make the .* match ungreedy by adding a question mark, and escape the slash, since that's what you're using for pattern delimiters. Also, you won't need the parentheses.

 

/>.*?<\/a>/

[unxposed]

Thanks for that!

 

It's a shame I don't think I need it anymore to get the file path though... or do I?.

[thebadbad]

If you want to store the paths (found in every href attribute in anchor tags), you can use this:

 

<?php
$string = '<a href="path1">text</a> another: <a href="path2">text</a>';
preg_match_all('~<a[^>]+?href="([^"]*)~i', $string, $matches);
//have a look at found paths
echo '<pre>', print_r($matches[1], true), '</pre>';
?>

 

Just let me know if you're trying to achieve something else.

[unxposed]

Great, I feel like I'm getting somewhere now.

 

$download_string = $field->content;
preg_match_all('~<a[^>]+?href="([^"]*)~i', $download_string, $matches);
$download_link = $matches[0];
$field->content = '<a href="' . $download_link . '" class="download_link">Download</a>';

 

I'm still not getting anything an my href though. Can you spot anything silly?

 

Thanks again.

[wildteen88]

You're original code was fine. It Just needed a few minor adjustments

 

$old_string = '<a href="some/unknown/path/here.file">unknown_filename.file</a>

hey man some more text

<a href="some/here.file">ipppy kwoejmajnd.file</a>

';
$new_string = preg_replace("/(>(.*)<\/a>)/i", ">Download</a>", $old_string);

echo $old_string;
echo '<hr/>';
echo $new_string;

[thebadbad]

Great, I feel like I'm getting somewhere now.

 

$download_string = $field->content;
preg_match_all('~<a[^>]+?href="([^"]*)~i', $download_string, $matches);
$download_link = $matches[0];
$field->content = '<a href="' . $download_link . '" class="download_link">Download</a>';

 

I'm still not getting anything an my href though. Can you spot anything silly?

 

Thanks again.

 

$matches is a two dimensional array. If there's only one path you want to grab, as suggested in your code, try this:

 

<?php
$download_string = $field->content;
preg_match('~<a[^>]+?href="([^"]*)~i', $download_string, $matches);
$download_link = $matches[1];
$field->content = '<a href="' . $download_link . '" class="download_link">Download</a>';
?>

[unxposed]

Thanks to both of you for your help... it's now working as desired with:

 

$download_string = $field->content;
preg_match_all('~<a[^>]+?href="([^"]*)~i', $download_string, $matches);
$download_link = $matches[1][0];
$field->content = '<a href="' . $download_link . '" class="download_link">Download</a>';

 

Thanks again!