Using str_replace so that it only acts on the first match?

Question

I want a version of str_replace() that only replaces the first occurrence of $search in the $subject. Is there an easy solution to thi

Answer 1

I created this little function that replaces string on string (case-sensitive) with limit, without the need of Regexp. It works fine.

function str_replace_limit($search, $replace, $string, $limit = 1) {
    $pos = strpos($string, $search);

    if ($pos === false) {
        return $string;
    }

    $searchLen = strlen($search);

    for ($i = 0; $i < $limit; $i++) {
        $string = substr_replace($string, $replace, $pos, $searchLen);

        $pos = strpos($string, $search);

        if ($pos === false) {
            break;
        }
    }

    return $string;
}

Example usage:

$search  = 'foo';
$replace = 'bar';
$string  = 'foo wizard makes foo brew for evil foo and jack';
$limit   = 2;

$replaced = str_replace_limit($search, $replace, $string, $limit);

echo $replaced;
// bar wizard makes bar brew for evil foo and jack