preg_replace - html tags

[Rytis]

Hello,
what regular expression I needed to use, if I want to change A to B, but I dont want to chage anything in HTML tags (<...>)?

Thank you.

[skywalker2208]

Can you give a few examples of what you want replaced? You might also be able to do it with str_replace.

[Rytis]

a is b <b is not a>
it should be:
b is b <b is not a>

It's very hard to explain. I dont needed any changes in <b is not a> (between <> tags). Only changes in normal text.
preg_replace changes a to b in tags. This is why I needed preg_replce.

[skywalker2208]

What values can be inside of the brackets? Is it just html that will be in there?

[Rytis]

What values can be inside of the brackets? Is it just html that will be in there?

Yes. Just html. Like

<img src...>
<a href...>

etc.

[skywalker2208]

I think you could use something like this

/<.+>/ 

The only problem with that if you had something in your file that had this syntax <something here> then it would pick it up and replace it with whatever you are choosing to replace it with.

[Charles]

Sometimes and in a controlled environment you can get away with making changes to HTML using regular expressions. But HTML in the wild is way too complicated for that. You'll need a full HTML parser.

[NogDog]

$text = 'a is b <b is not a>';
$search = 'a';
$replace = 'b';
$text = preg_replace('/'.preg_quote($search).'(?=[^>]*(<|$))/', $replace, $text);
echo htmlentities($text); 

PS: When you've figured out how that works, you have passed your PCRE exam.

[Rytis]

Wow. Thank you NogDog

[mintedjo]

PCRE exam

?
Sounds sexy

[Charles]

PCRE exam

?
Sounds sexy

About as sexy as a digital prostate exam.