bbcode & preg_replace not working

Question

i code this for bbcode replacement with my forms :

// BBcode conversion
$message = $this->request->data['Minichat']['message'];
$conversion = array(
    '\[b\](.*?)\[\/b\]' => '<span style="font-weight: bold;">$1</span>',
    '\[i\](.*?)\[\/i\]' => '<span style="font-style: italic;">$1</span>',
    '\[u\](.*?)\[\/u\]' => '<span style="text-decoration: underline;">$1</span>'
);
// Boucle qui mouline les règles précédentes
foreach ($conversion as $k=>$v) {
    $final_message = preg_replace('/'.$k.'/',$v,$message);
}
$final_message = nl2br($final_message);

the $final_message is returned (no problems with POST) but without replacement.. what is wrong ?

Answer 1

The problem is that each iteration of the $conversion loop replaces the last instance of the $final_message variable. One solution would be to name the initial variable this way:

$final_message = $this->request->data['Minichat']['message'];

And then feed that variable back thru each time in the loop:

foreach ($conversion as $k=>$v) {
    $final_message = preg_replace('/'.$k.'/',$v,$final_message);
}
$final_message = nl2br($final_message);

Answer 2

You can try this since preg_replace support arrays:

$message = <<<'LOD'
[b]La maitresse[/b] demande à [i]Toto[/i] s'il a mangé [u]des épinards[/u] à la cantine
LOD;

$conv = array(
    '~\[b](.*?)\[/b]~s' => '<span style="font-weight: bold;">$1</span>',
    '~\[i](.*?)\[/i]~s' => '<span style="font-style: italic;">$1</span>',
    '~\[u](.*?)\[/u]~s' => '<span style="text-decoration: underline;">$1</span>'
);

$final_message = preg_replace(array_keys($conv), $conv, $message);

$final_message = nl2br($final_message);

echo $final_message;