Replace numbers, dash, dot or space from the start of a string with PHP regex

Question

I\'m trying to replace numbers with optional, dash, dot or space from the start of a string, my pattern does not seem to work. I want to replace this:

01. PHP
0         


        

Answer 1

Can try this

$t = "01. PHP";

$pattern = '/^[0-9\.\s\-]+/';

echo preg_replace($pattern, '', $t);

Output

PHP

Regex Explanation

^ assert position at start of the string
0-9 a single character in the range between 0 and 9
\. matches the character . literally
\s match any white space character [\r\n\t\f ]
\- matches the character - literally

Answer 2

Your regex - /^[\d{0,4}(. -)?]/ - matches the beginning of the string, and then 1 character: either a digit, or a {, or a 0, or a ,, or a }, or a (, or a dot, or a range from space to ) (i.e. a space, !"#$%&' and a ), or a question mark. So, it can only work in a limited number of case you describe.

Just use

preg_replace('/^[\d .-]+/','', $t);

Here,

• ^ - matches beginning of string/line
• [\d .-]+ matches a digit, space, dot or hyphen, 1 or more timesd

See demo

Nogte that if you have multiple lines, you need (?m) modifier.

preg_replace('/(?m)^[\d .-]+/','', $t);

Here is an IDEONE demo

NOTE: If you plan to remove anything that is not letter from the beginning of the string, I'd recommend using ^\P{L}+ regex with u modifier.