How do I achieve the same result using sprintf

str_replace is not that slow. I suspect you have other problems. Why not post the script here and show us what's happening.

The script is fine as it was working well. I added that line of code and the script is noticeably slower.  (the script is processing 1,500+ varaibles) so even if its a little bit slower it makes a big difference.

Yes, but it depends WHERE you texted that piece of code. str_replace is not slow. Have you placed inside a loop?

Try using a regex if you want to see a real slowdown.

sprintf can replace known values in a formatted string, but str_replace finds values in unknown locations and replaces them. The two are not really equivalent.

Yes, its inside of a foreach loop.  Not sure what you mean by known values.

I know where in the string the word is i want to srip out its at the end.


The actual code im using looks like this:

	//Strip out titles already containing the word large. 
		$result = str_replace(' large', '', $row['prodname']);

		$entry = array(
			'title' => html_escape($result),
			'link' => html_escape($link),
			'description' => html_escape($desc),
			'g:product_type' => "$row['prodcat"],
			'g:expiration_date' => $expirationDate,
			'g:id' => $row['productid'],
			'g:condition' => html_escape(strtolower($row['prodcondition'])),
			'g:price' => $price
		);

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Not sure why he would want to suggest somthing slower than what I'n already using when I am going to speed.  I appriciate and answer to my question but I didn't like that he suggested somthing is wrong with my code before he answerd the question.

"Not sure why he would want to suggest somthing slower than what I'n already using when I am going to speed."

I was not suggesting you use something slower, I was saying that what I would normally recommend is slower than str_replace. You will notice that I did not offer any regex patterns to accomplish the task because it was clear that the performance would be unacceptable.


"I didn't like that he suggested somthing is wrong with my code before he answerd the question"

We rarely see the whole picture when we answer a question and many people leave out details which they consider unnecessary but which may be vital in resolving the issue. In memory operations such as str_replace are the fastest  bit of the PHP/MySQL software so when someone says that using a very, very fast routine is slowing their code it doesn't feel right. Normally in this environment the biggest slowdowns are bad (or no) indexes in MySQL or loops in PHP. That's why I said what I said. Perhaps I should have worded it better.

Look at this PHP page http://uk2.php.net/microtime which deals with measuring script execution times. Adapt this and put it in your problem script and measure the time that various stages of the script take. You can even explicitly measure the time taken by str_replace. I think that the results would be very helpful to you in tracking down where the time is being used up.