PHP: Replace all instances

Asked 2011-09-04T02:26:04.460

I have a chatlog file that looks like this (name represents screenames and text is their chat string)

name: some text
name2: more text
name: text
name3: text

I want to color all names up to the : red.
For example: <font color=red>myname:</fontcolor> hello How would I do this?

I'm not sure why, but this code colors everything after the colon

echo preg_replace('/(.*?):/', "<font color=#F00>$1</font>:", $output);

php regex replace preg-replace

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2 Answers

put the : inside the font tag after $1

echo preg_replace('/^(.*?):/', "<font color=#F00>$1:</font>", $output);

answered 2011-09-04T02:31:12.067

Make the regex more specific:

= preg_replace('/^(\w+):/m', ...

Or if usernames can contain non-alphanum symbols:

= preg_replace('/^(\S+):/m', "<b>$1</b>:", $output);

answered 2011-09-04T03:34:45.090