In what scenarios would it be more efficient to define a common delimiter and replace other possible delimiters in PHP string manipulation tasks?

When working with strings in PHP, it can be more efficient to define a common delimiter and then replace other possible delimiters with it. This can help simplify string manipulation tasks and make the code more readable. By standardizing the delimiter, it becomes easier to perform operations like splitting or joining strings without having to account for multiple delimiters.

// Define a common delimiter
$common_delimiter = '|';

// String with different delimiters
$string = 'apple,orange;banana-pear';

// Replace other delimiters with the common delimiter
$string = str_replace([',', ';', '-'], $common_delimiter, $string);

echo $string; // Output: apple|orange|banana|pear