Better PHP String Replace with the strtr Function

PHP PHP functions quick tips web development

The PHP strtr function is well suited in many cases to perform string replace routines instead of PHP's str_replace.

There are two signatures for the function, but the one we're interested in here is the following:

 strtr ( string $str , array $replace_pairs ) : string

If given two arguments, the second should be an array in the form array('from' => 'to', ...). The return value is a string where all the occurrences of the array keys have been replaced by the corresponding values. The longest keys will be tried first. Once a substring has been replaced, its new value will not be searched again.

The main "nice-to-haves" are the facts that the search/replace is run from longest string to shortest, and the fact that once a substitution takes places, the substituted string will not be eligible for further matches / substitutions, which can be pain points when using the ubiquitous str_replace function.

Refer to the PHP documentation for the function for more info: https://php.net/strtr.