replace non-letters with underscore

I've got the following problem.

In a text field people can give their last name.
With this input an pdf file is created.
This works fine until a user has an space or an special character in their
lastname like '.

I would like to do the following:
if a lastname contains other characters than normal letters replace them
with an underscore.
How can I do that?

Maarten

On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 22:53:01 +0200, "Maarten" <rijt@dse.nl> wrote:

>I've got the following problem.
>
>In a text field people can give their last name.
>With this input an pdf file is created.
>This works fine until a user has an space or an special character in their
>lastname like '.
>
>I would like to do the following:
>if a lastname contains other characters than normal letters replace them
>with an underscore.
>How can I do that?
>
>Maarten

You need a regular expression.

preg_replace ("/[^a-zA-Z]/e", "_", $string);

"Tyrone Slothrop" <ts@paranoids.com> schreef in bericht
news:e8u8k1t9oo4sgsrmq8butngnqasqb5lvkr@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 22:53:01 +0200, "Maarten" <rijt@dse.nl> wrote:
>
>>I've got the following problem.
>>
>>In a text field people can give their last name.
>>With this input an pdf file is created.
>>This works fine until a user has an space or an special character in their
>>lastname like '.
>>
>>I would like to do the following:
>>if a lastname contains other characters than normal letters replace them
>>with an underscore.
>>How can I do that?
>>
>>Maarten
>
> You need a regular expression.
>
> preg_replace ("/[^a-zA-Z]/e", "_", $string);

Is the following the same?

preg_replace('\\W', '_', $string);

preg_replace('\\W', '_', $string);
- is invalid -

preg_replace ("/[^a-zA-Z]/e", "_", $string);
- doesn't actually require the "e" -

I would do:
preg_replace('/\W/', '_', $string)







"Maarten" <rijt@dse.nl> wrote in message
news:43452c5f$0$9516$e4fe514c@dreader31.news.xs4al l.nl...
> "Tyrone Slothrop" <ts@paranoids.com> schreef in bericht
> news:e8u8k1t9oo4sgsrmq8butngnqasqb5lvkr@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 22:53:01 +0200, "Maarten" <rijt@dse.nl> wrote:
>>
>>>I've got the following problem.
>>>
>>>In a text field people can give their last name.
>>>With this input an pdf file is created.
>>>This works fine until a user has an space or an special character in
>>>their
>>>lastname like '.
>>>
>>>I would like to do the following:
>>>if a lastname contains other characters than normal letters replace them
>>>with an underscore.
>>>How can I do that?
>>>
>>>Maarten
>>
>> You need a regular expression.
>>
>> preg_replace ("/[^a-zA-Z]/e", "_", $string);
>
> Is the following the same?
>
> preg_replace('\\W', '_', $string);
>
>
>