Hi guys, I have a sample string "[hp-ex][log]peter[hall o]" that I need to process. I need to remove the [] and separate the sections with a space. If there are more then one [] part the first part should be bold (add <b></b> around it). I have a solution that is working very well, but am thinking that I can do this with preg_replace directly, what do you think? The final output is always found in $thestr. Can all this be done with one preg_replace? <?php echo "<pre>"; $str = "[hp-ex][log]peter[hall o]"; preg_match_all("/\[(.+?)\]/", $str, $matches); print_r($matches); $m1 = $matches[0]; $m2 = $matches[1]; if(count($m1)>1) { $m2[0] = "<b>$m2[0]</b>"; $thestr = implode(" ", $m2); } elseif(count($m1)==1) { $thestr = $m2[0]; } else $thestr = ""; echo $thestr; echo "</pre>"; ?> Best regards, Peter Lauri www.dwsasia.com - company website www.lauri.se - personal website -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php