Ereg_replace with a String - regex

Question

I have a string like this:
$str = "{gfgd}i:123;a:7:{gfgd}i:5;a:35:";
And I want to replace it to:
$str = "{gfgd},{gfgd},";
I want to use ereg_replace with it and replace this kind of phrase:
"i:[0-9]a:[0-9]:" into "," sign.
I try it:
$str = "i:143;a:5:{gfgd}i:123;a:7:{gfgd}i:5;a:35:";
$text = ereg_replace("/^i:[0-9]+;a:[0-9]+:+$", ",", $str);
But i doesn't work. Can you help me?
Thank you in advance

Answer 1

$str = "i:143;a:5:{gfgd}i:123;a:7{gfgd}i:5;a:35";
$str = ereg_replace("\}[^\{]+\{", "},{", $str); // replace between } and { with },{
$str = ereg_replace("^[^\{]+", "", $str); // remove from first
$str = ereg_replace("[^\}]+$", ",", $str); // remove from last
print $str;

Answer 2

Don't use ereg_replace as This function has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 5.3.0
Use preg_replace instead and your regex is wrong. Remove anchors ^ and $
$text = preg_replace('/i:[0-9]+;a:[0-9]+:?/', ",", $str);
//=> ,{gfgd},{gfgd},
Online Demo: http://ideone.com/W2P55n

Answer 3

It looks like you are dealing with a PHP array or object serialized into string. I recommend running:
<?php
$arrayOrObject = unserialize($theEntireStringYouGot);
print_r($arrayOrObject);
?>
That way you may not need to even deal with regex at all.
Note: it will not unserialize a piece of string like in your example, feed it the whole thing.