How can regular expressions be used to manipulate text files in PHP?

Regular expressions can be used in PHP to search for specific patterns in text files and manipulate the content based on those patterns. This can be useful for tasks such as finding and replacing text, extracting specific information, or validating input. By using functions like preg_match(), preg_replace(), and preg_match_all(), developers can easily work with regular expressions to manipulate text files in PHP. 

// Example: Using regular expressions to find and replace text in a text file

$file = 'example.txt';
$content = file_get_contents($file);

// Replace all occurrences of 'apple' with 'orange'
$new_content = preg_replace('/apple/', 'orange', $content);

file_put_contents($file, $new_content);

Keywords

Regular expressions text files manipulation PHP functions libraries

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