PHP regex - how to capitalize a specific string when found within another string using regex?

Question

(This question is not a duplicate of this.)

How can I capitalize the string llc when found within another string, surrounded by word boundaries? In other words, I don't want to captilalize llc if it's in the middle of another word, such as ballcap, but only when it's by itself, either surrounded by spaces, end of string, etc. Such as my big company, llc.

I have the following line of PHP that worked fine in PHP 5.6, to capitalize the string llc whenever found within another string:

$foo = trim(preg_replace('/\bllc\b/ie', 'strtoupper("$0")', $str));

But in PHP 7.4 (and maybe all 7.x), that always returns empty string, regardless of what string is fed in for the value of $str.

I have tried using preg_replace_callback but can't seem to get the syntax right for my use case.

Example: big company, llc should become big company, LLC

Any idea how I can get this working in 7.4?

How is this not a duplicate? It shows you exactly what to use instead of the `e` modifier. — AbraCadaver, Nov 23 '20 at 18:26
what is the `e` modifier? The `e` at the end of the regex pattern? — HerrimanCoder, Nov 23 '20 at 18:30
Yes, the duplicate shows you how to use `preg_replace_callback` and a function to get the `0` match. — AbraCadaver, Nov 23 '20 at 18:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 23 '20 at 18:34

e modifier is deprecated, you should use preg_replace_callback It runs a function with an array of all matches and uses return value as replacement

$foo = trim(preg_replace_callback('/\bllc\b/i', function($matches) {
    return strtoupper($matches[0]);
}, $str));

PHP regex - how to capitalize a specific string when found within another string using regex?

1 Answers1