How to strip non-alphabetic, spaces and numeric characters from a string?

Question

How can I use php and regex to strip all non-alphabetic, spaces and all numeric from a string?

I've tried this:

$input = "Hello - World 12";
$output = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s]/", "", $input);

Wanted output: HelloWorld

Avinash Raj · Answer 1 · 2014-11-21T11:14:07.923

2

You could simply use,

$output = preg_replace("~[\W0-9_]~", "", $input);

edited Nov 21 '14 at 11:14

answered Nov 21 '14 at 11:08

Avinash Raj

Pupil · Answer 2 · 2014-11-21T11:14:43.883

1

Use this expression:

$answer = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z]/", '', $input);

This will remove any character which are not from:

A-Z
a-z

To remove any of white spaces:

$string = preg_replace('/\s+/', '', $answer);

edited Nov 21 '14 at 11:14

answered Nov 21 '14 at 11:08

Pupil

I also want to remove all numeric characters. – Daan Nov 21 '14 at 11:11
Answer updated, please check. – Pupil Nov 21 '14 at 11:12
Thank you, but yet it doesn't remove the spaces, is that possible? – Daan Nov 21 '14 at 11:14

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 21 '14 at 11:09

1

$output = preg_replace('/[\W\d_]/i', '', $input);

answered Nov 21 '14 at 11:09

thecodeparadox

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 21 '14 at 11:09

Remove the 0-9 and \s from your regex like so:

$input = "Hello - World 12";
$output = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z]/", "", $input);

Now you are checking for every character which is not (^) lowercase a-z or uppercase a-z. Than you are replacing that character with nothing "".

4 Answers4