Trying To Format Form Input For Use In Mysql Fulltext Boolean Search - Preg_Replace Is Failing Me

[lb3000]

I am trying to format form text input for use in a mysql fulltext boolean mode search. If someone wants to match "all" words in the input box, I need to put a "+" sign in front of every word. If they choose to match "any" words, we can ignore this step. If they enter a phrase -- indicated by wrapping the phrase in quotes (eg., "search me") I need to include that quoted string as is. Easier to see with an example:

 

Input: one two "test test"

 

Assuming someone has asked to get a result matching "all" words/phrases, I should format this input like so: +one +two "test test". Here's my code to do this formatting. It works great up until, of course, the last step. I end up with this output: +one +two +"test +test". The + inside of the quoted phrase -- "test +test" -- is the problem. It seems preg_replace() is just skipping over doing the replacing I need. Anyone see anything weird here?

 

$keywords = 'one two "test test"';

// Checking that the $keywords string doesn't start with a quotation mark. If not - this is a word, add a +
if (substr($keywords, 0,1) != '"')
{
$keywords = '+' . $keywords;
}

// Rewriting $keywords so that every space in the string now includes a + -- will use this in a sec to replace the quoted phrase with "+" with the original quoted phrase - no +
$prep_string = str_replace(' ', ' +', $keywords); // now $keywords = +one +two +"test +test"

// Finding any quoted phrases in the original $keywords string here
$pattern = "/\"[^\"]*\"/";
preg_match_all($pattern, $keywords, $matches); // the match = "test test"

if (!empty($matches[0])) // $matches[0] is the returned array that holds any matches found in the original $keywords string
{
$prepped = array();
foreach ($matches[0] AS $value)
{
// Looping through and preparing each value (here the value is just "test test") to include a +
// This is so that I have a way to match values in the $prep_string string

$prepped[] = '/' . str_replace(' ', ' +', $value) . '/'; // this outputs '/"test +test"/'
}

$new_string = preg_replace($prepped, $matches[0], $prep_string);
$new_string = str_replace('+"', ' "', $new_string);

// The rest here is just to dump all of this to screen, you'll see that preg_replace didn't replace "test +test" found in $prepped with "test test" found in $matches[0]
'original matches: ' . var_dump($matches[0]);
echo '<br />';
'prepped matches: ' . var_dump($prepped);
echo '<br />';
echo 'preg_replace output: ' . $new_string; // this is
}

If you var_dump matches[0] and $prepped, and then echo $new_string, here's what you see:

 

original matches: array(1) { [0]=> string(11) ""test test"" }

prepped matches: array(1) { [0]=> string(14) "/"test +test"/" }

preg_replace output: +one +two +"test +test" ====== this should be +one +two "test test"