In the context of PHP, what are the potential pitfalls of relying solely on regular expressions for string manipulation?
Relying solely on regular expressions for string manipulation in PHP can lead to complex and hard-to-maintain code, as regular expressions can be difficult to read and understand. It may also lead to performance issues, as regular expressions can be slower compared to built-in string functions in PHP. To improve readability and performance, it's recommended to use a combination of regular expressions and built-in string functions for string manipulation tasks.
// Example of using a combination of regular expressions and built-in string functions for string manipulation
$string = "Hello, World!";
// Using preg_replace to replace "Hello" with "Hi"
$string = preg_replace("/Hello/", "Hi", $string);
// Using str_replace to replace "World" with "Universe"
$string = str_replace("World", "Universe", $string);
echo $string; // Output: Hi, Universe!