[FIXED] How to remove a word if it contains a number in PHP

Issue

I am trying to figure out how to remove a word if it contains numbers. For example I have the sentence "Lorum ipsum: 7-Dt Dolor Sit, Amet 8-AM. Consectetur adipiscing". What I want to remove is "7-Dt" and "8-AM"

I have tried:

$str = 'Lorum ipsum: 7-Dt Dolor Sit, Amet 8-AM. Consectetur adipiscing';
$arr = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z\']/"," ",$str);                                                                   
echo($arr);
// Outputs: Lorum ipsum Dt Dolor Sit Amet AM Consectetur adipiscing

With my solution it only removes the numbers but not the letters/words behind it.

Preferably I create a function so I can use it multiple times.

Solution

To remove words consisting of letters, digits or underscores, and containing a digit you may use

preg_replace("/[^\W\d]*\d\w*/", " ",$str)

To remove chunks of non-whitespace characters that contain a digit, use

preg_replace("/[^\s\d]*\d\S*/", " ",$str)

If a digit should be mixed with other chars you need to remove, use

preg_replace("/(?:[^\W\d]+\d|\d+[^\W\d])\w*/", " ",$str) 
preg_replace("/(?:[^\s\d]+\d|\d+[^\s\d])\S*/", " ",$str)

In your concrete case, since you also want to keep the trailing punctuation, you may use

preg_replace("/(?:[^\s\d]+\d|\d+[^\s\d])\S*\b/", " ",$str)

See the PHP demo, the \b word boundary will require the last char matches with \S* to be a word char. In some cases, you would even need to make sure there is no word char after it, then you will replace \b with \b(?!\w).

Pattern details

• [^\s\d]* - zero or more chars other than whitespace and digits
• \d - a digit
• \S* - 0 or more non-whitespace chars
• [^\W\d]*\d\w* - matches 0 or more chars other than non-word and digit chars, then a digit, and then 0+ word chars ("word" char is a letter, digit or _)
• (?:[^\s\d]+\d|\d+[^\s\d]) - matches either of the two alternatives:
  • [^\s\d]+\d - 1+ chars other than a whitespace and digit and then a digit
  • | - or
  • \d+[^\s\d] - 1+ digits and then a char other than a whitespace and digit

Answered By - Wiktor Stribiżew

Answer Checked By - Willingham (PHPFixing Volunteer)