regex - how to replace a string into an anchor tag in php -

i having of problem on how replace text anchor tag in text has text similar in href property of tag.

the text should display below:

//input   $string = "text1 text2 text23 text24";   $tofind   = "text2"; //output   <a href="welcome_to_text2.php">text2</a> 

i used code below wrong output:

<?php   $fulltext = "text1 text2 text23 text24";   $tofind   = "text2";   $string   = explode(" " , $str);    foreach($string $value){       $href     = "welcome_to_{$tofing}.php";      $fulltext = preg_replace('/('.preg_quote($tofind, '/').')/i',                 "<a href=\"{$href}\">"."\\1"."</a>", $fulltext );   }    echo $fulltext ;      //it outputs  <a href="welcome_to_<a href=""">text2</a> ?> 

text23 , text24 replaced since text2 occurs on both string. want replace text2 alone since matched. know? thanks

you can use code below:

$fulltext = "text1 text2 text23 text24"; $tofind   = "text2"; $array   = explode(" " , $fulltext); $filekey = array_search($tofind, $array); // if giving file not exist use 'text1' default. $filename = isset($array[$filekey]) ? $array[$filekey] : 'text1';  echo sprintf('<a href="welcome_to_%s.php">%s</a>', $filename, $filename); 

or if want build links elements in array:

$fulltext = "text1 text2 text23 text24"; $tofind   = "text2"; $array   = explode(" " , $fulltext); $text = ''; foreach ($array $value) {   $text .= sprintf('<a href="welcome_to_%s.php">%s</a><br />', $value, $value); } echo $text; 

hope helps.