PHP Phone Number Replace Regex

Question

I have a regex pattern I found for removing phone numbers from strings of text. It works great, except a couple of cases (these are US phone numbers).

Here is the regex:

/\(?\d{3}\)?[-\s.]?\d{3}[-\s.]\d{4}/x

Here are the cases I need to catch:

55555555555 (area code + 7 numbers)
155555555555 (1 + area code + 7 numbers)
(555)-5555555 (area code in parenthesis, dash, 7 numbers)
1-555-555-5555
1-(555)-555-5555

Here is the regex replace I am using:

$pattern = "/\(?\d{3}\)?[-\s.]?\d{3}[-\s.]\d{4}/x";
$replacement = "[phone redacted]";
$body = preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $body);

Your examples certainly don't cover every way people could try to get around this redaction scheme, so I hope it's truly representative of your data :) — Code Jockey
– Code Jockey, Commented Feb 28, 2012 at 20:20
Yes, its hard because people entering phone numbers in a text area is unpredictable. It's difficult to say, well, is 55555555 a price, or a phone number? — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented Feb 28, 2012 at 20:48
erg edit: but in this case, I know exactly the text being edited, so the matches here should almost always be a phone number. — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented Feb 28, 2012 at 21:08

Toto · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-28 16:39:59Z

2

How about:

/(?:1-?)?(?:\(\d{3}\)|\d{3})[-\s.]?\d{3}[-\s.]?\d{4}/

test:

$arr = array(
'5555555555 (area code + 7 numbers)',
'15555555555 (1 + area code + 7 numbers)',
'(555)-5555555 (area code in parenthesis, dash, 7 numbers)',
'1-555-555-5555',
'1-(555)-555-5555');

$pattern = "/(?:1-?)?(?:\(\d{3}\)|\d{3})[-\s.]?\d{3}[-\s.]?\d{4}/x";
$replacement = "[phone redacted]";
foreach($arr as $body) {
  echo preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $body), "\n";
}

output:

[phone redacted] (area code + 7 numbers)
[phone redacted] (1 + area code + 7 numbers)
[phone redacted] (area code in parenthesis, dash, 7 numbers)
[phone redacted]
[phone redacted]

answered Feb 28, 2012 at 16:39

Toto

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3 Comments

Code Jockey Over a year ago

+1 looks pretty good - catches more cases than asked for, but HOPEFULLY that won't be a problem :)

Abela Over a year ago

Gave this a +1 but would like to add the use of periods, such as: 1.555.555.5555 which is growing in popularity.

Toto Over a year ago

@Abela: It works also with period and space see [-\s.] except for the first one, just replace (?:1-?)? with (?:1[-.]?)?

Sufian Latif · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-28 16:14:07Z

0

This one should match:

(1-?)?(-?\([0-9]{3}\)|[0-9]{3})(-?[0-9]{3}){2}[0-9]

edited Feb 28, 2012 at 16:14

answered Feb 28, 2012 at 15:58

Sufian Latif

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2 Comments

Kevin Over a year ago

This actually replaced everything (no text at all).

Kevin Over a year ago

When I have a paragraph that has 1-555-555-5555 etc in it, it finds it, but also removes all text. Updating original question.

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