asked on

Remove mutiple characters from string.

I need to remove a few different characters from values returned through a mysql databases.

Characters to remove: period (.), underscore (_), single quote (')

I need to know the fastest way to do it:

1. using str_replace 3 times on each word selected from db
2. using mysql's REPLACE function 3 times when selecting from db
3. or is there a better way

alextr2003fr

try to use preg_replace instead.
http://fr.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php

itcdr

ASKER

What would be the fastest:

1. str_replace
$word=str_replace("_","",$word);
$word=str_replace("\.","",$word);
$word=str_replace("\'","",$word);

2. REPLACE (mysql)
SELECT REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(word,'_',''),'.',''),"'",'') FROM ...

3. preg_replace
$patterns[0] = '/\./';
$patterns[1] = '/_/';
$patterns[2] = '/\'/';
$word=preg_replace($patterns,"",$word);

4. Or is there a better way?

alextr2003fr

usually string functions are faster than regular expressions but maybe you should try to benchmark and see the results

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alextr2003fr

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itcdr

ASKER

How do I benchmark the results?

alextr2003fr

one variant :
<?php
$stimer = explode( ' ', microtime() );
$stimer = $stimer[1] + $stimer[0];

//your code

$etimer = explode( ' ', microtime() );
$etimer = $etimer[1] + $etimer[0];
echo 'Took '.($etimer-$stimer).' seconds.';
?>

itcdr

ASKER

Thanks. It turns out the preg_replace was the fastest and the easiest.

alextr2003fr

you are welcome :)