How do I remove a specific string of text that has variables

I am using a wordpress site. I want to remove or replace some text. This is content from a plugin I am unable to change the output (at least from all of my attempts to).

For example with the brackets;

(The Text: date1⁠–date2)

(The Text: Feb-09-Feb-12)

The two dates are variable, as in they will change all of the time. Is there a way I can set a wildcard to say whatever is in data1 and data2 replace the string date1-date2 with X or remove that whole string "(The Text: date1⁠–date2)" altogether.

Is there a function I can add to my themes function.php file?

Or as an alternative using css. This text is within a div that I can set to disply:none but inside that I need another div to display. My thinking was to just remove the text, as above. Again this is content from a plugin I am unable to change the output (at least from all of my attempts to). I tried visibility but it leaves the space where that text was.

How can I display something inside a div that is set to display:none?

<div style="display:none">
  <div>
    display something
  </div>
</div>

Solution

You can't display something inside an element set to display: none;. You could try and set the font-size of the element to 0, and use the :after selector to add your text to the content and set the font-size back to something readable:

div { font-size: 0; }
div:after { font-size: 16px; content: "This Text is shown"; }

<div>(The Text: date01-date02)</div>

Alternatively, it's a bit of a "hammer to hit a fly" solution, but using the template_redirect hook, you can turn on Output Buffering and run preg_replace() on the content in the buffer, it's a technique I like to call "Runtime find & replace".

add_action( 'template_redirect', 'global_find_replace', 99 );
function global_find_replace(){
    ob_start( function( $buffer ){
        $text   = 'Your Text Here';
        $buffer = preg_replace('/\(The Text: .*\)/', $text, $buffer );

        return $buffer;
    });
}

Documentation & Function Reference

Function	Linked Description
`template_redirect`	Fires before determining which template to load.
`preg_replace()`	Perform a regular expression search and replace