Regex / DOMDocument - match and replace text not in a link

Question

I need to find and replace all text matches in a case insensitive way, unless the text is within an anchor tag - for example:

Match this text and re         


        

Answer 1

$a='
Match this text and replace it
Don\'t match this text
We still need to match this text and replace it
';

echo preg_replace('~match this text(?![^<]*)~i','replacement',$a);

The negative lookahead ensures the replacement happens only if the next tag is not a closing link . It works fine with your example, though it won't work if you happen to use other tags inside your links.