preg_replace_callback
    (PHP 4 >= 4.0.5, PHP 5)
preg_replace_callback -- Perform a regular expression search and replace using a callback
Description
mixed 
preg_replace_callback ( mixed pattern, callback callback, mixed subject [, int limit [, int &count]] )
   The behavior of this function is almost identical to
   preg_replace(), except for the fact that instead of
   replacement parameter, one should specify a
   callback that will be called and passed an array of
   matched elements in the subject string. The callback should return the
   replacement string.
   See preg_replace() for description of other parameters.
  
Example 1. preg_replace_callback() example 
<?php // this text was used in 2002 // we want to get this up to date for 2003 $text = "April fools day is 04/01/2002\n"; $text.= "Last christmas was 12/24/2001\n"; // the callback function function next_year($matches)  {   // as usual: $matches[0] is the complete match   // $matches[1] the match for the first subpattern   // enclosed in '(...)' and so on   return $matches[1].($matches[2]+1); } echo preg_replace_callback(             "|(\d{2}/\d{2}/)(\d{4})|",             "next_year",             $text); // result is: // April fools day is 04/01/2003 // Last christmas was 12/24/2002 ?>
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   You'll often need the callback function
   for a preg_replace_callback() in just one place.
   In this case you can use create_function() to
   declare an anonymous function as callback within the call to
   preg_replace_callback(). By doing it this way
   you have all information for the call in one place and do not
   clutter the function namespace with a callback functions name
   not used anywhere else.
  
Example 2. preg_replace_callback() and create_function() 
<?php /* a unix-style command line filter to convert uppercase  * letters at the beginning of paragraphs to lowercase */ $fp = fopen("php://stdin", "r") or die("can't read stdin"); while (!feof($fp)) {     $line = fgets($fp);     $line = preg_replace_callback(         '|<p>\s*\w|',         create_function(             // single quotes are essential here,             // or alternative escape all $ as \$             '$matches',             'return strtolower($matches[0]);'         ),         $line     );     echo $line; } fclose($fp); ?>
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Example 3. preg_replace_callback() using recursive structure
    to handle encapsulated BB code 
<?php $input = "plain [indent] deep [indent] deeper [/indent] deep [/indent] plain"; 
  function parseTagsRecursive($input)  {          $regex = '#\[indent]((?:[^[]|\[(?!/?indent])|(?R))+)\[/indent]#';
      if (is_array($input)) {         $input = '<div style="margin-left: 10px">'.$input[1].'</div>';     }
      return preg_replace_callback($regex, 'parseTagsRecursive', $input); }
  $output = parseTagsRecursive($input);
  echo $output; ?>
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Note: 
    count parameter is available since PHP 5.1.0.
   
   See also preg_replace(),
   create_function(),
    and information about the callback type.