There's a French typographic rule to write properly some words in a genderless way, by adding an (·) interpunct between letters. A few authors on my website are however typing a simple (.) dot instead.
As a solution, I'd like to create a function to replace in PHP strings each dots which are placed between two lowercase letters by interpuncts. But my PHP skills are rather limited… Here is what I'm looking for:
REPLACE THIS:
$string = "T.N.T.: Chargé.e des livreur.se.s."
BY THIS:
$string = "T.N.T.: Chargé·e des livreur·se·s."
Could someone help me please? Thank you.
Use the preg_replace with pattern to dynamically match 3 groups - two lowercase letters (including special French letters) and dot between, and use the first and third captured group in replacement, along with intepunct:
$string = "T.N.T.: Chargé.e des livreur.se.s.";
$pattern = '/([a-zàâçéèêëîïôûùüÿñæœ])(\.)([a-zàâçéèêëîïôûùüÿñæœ])/';
$replacement = '$1·$3'; //captured first and third group, and interpunct in the middle
//results in "T.N.T.: Chargé·e des livreur·se·s."
$string_replaced = preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string);
More about preg_replace: