Matching Unicode letter characters in PCRE/PHP
I think the problem is much simpler than that: You forgot to specify the u
modifier. The Unicode character properties are only available in UTF-8 mode.
Your regex should be:
// unicode letters, apostrophe, hyphen, space
$namePattern = '/^[-\' \p{L}]+$/u';
If you want to replace Unicode old pattern
with new pattern
you should write:
$text = preg_replace('/\bold pattern\b/u', 'new pattern', $text);
So the key here is u
modifier
Note : Your server php version
shoud be at least PHP 4.3.5
as mentioned here php.net | Pattern Modifiers
u (PCRE_UTF8) This modifier turns on additional functionality of PCRE that is incompatible with Perl. Pattern strings are treated as UTF-8. This modifier is available from PHP 4.1.0 or greater on Unix and from PHP 4.2.3 on win32. UTF-8 validity of the pattern is checked since PHP 4.3.5.
Thanks AgreeOrNot
who give me that key here preg_replace match whole word in arabic
I tried it and it worked in localhost but when I try it in remote server it didn't work, then I found that php.net start use u
modifier in PHP 4.3.5. , I upgrade php version and it works
Its important to know that this method is very helpful for Arabic users (عربي) because - as I believe - unicode is the best encode for arabic language, and replacement will not work if you don't use the u
modifier, see next example it should work with you
$text = preg_replace('/\bمرحبا بك\b/u', 'NEW', $text);