PHP str_replace notworking if used 2 times

So I have this practical page I made to see if I can make a template language, the code is listed below:

<?php

ini_set('display_errors', 1);
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

function get_attributes($element) {
    
        $output = explode(" ", $element);
    
        return $output; 
    
}

function build_element($item, $attributes) {
    
    switch($element) {
     
        case "form";
        
            $template = "<form {{attributes}}>";
    
            $template = str_replace("{{attributes}}", $attributes, $template);
    
            return $template;
        
        break;
        
    }
    
}

function get_string_between($string, $start, $end){
    $string = ' ' . $string;
    $ini = strpos($string, $start);
    if ($ini == 0) return '';
    $ini += strlen($start);
    $len = strpos($string, $end, $ini) - $ini;
    return substr($string, $ini, $len);
}

$fullstring = '

<xe:form style="width:100px; height: 100px; background: #55ff55;"></xe:form>

';
$parsed = get_string_between($fullstring, '<xe:', '>');

$e = get_attributes($parsed);

$full = '<{{et}} {{attr}}></form>';

$full = str_replace('{{attr}}', $e[1], $full);


// the str_replace() bellow this comment is causing issues
$full = str_replace('{{et}}', $e[0], $full); //   <--------------------- issue is here

echo $full;

It seems like if I add 2 str_replace functions, the echo is blank, and the $e var is working fine.

I tried echoing out both $e vars, but they are both fine.

If someone could point me in the right direction, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Answer

The result is:

<form style=”width:100px;></form>

Not sure what do you want exactly, but:

• the style attribute is opened with a double quote, but not closed, causing the form to be not visible.
• you didn’t parse the attributes perfectly as you miss the height and bgcolor. (separating with the space is not a good idea as some attributes can have space in the value)

HTML is fair complex, you might want to check out https://www.php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php to manipulate it without weird issues. You may change a few things with search&replace, but they will break easily.