Why is "deleteBlocks" not working in phpWord? - block

Question

I´m trying to use blocks in my Word document but I´m having some problems. First of all, when I declare a block in my document, if I don´t use the function "cloneBlock", the result appears like this:
${sec}
example
${/sec}
Maybe I must use that function to appear properly. But my main problem is that "deleteBlock" is not working. If I don´t clone the block, the generated docx is corrupted. But if I clone the block, the function "deleteBlock" doesn´t delete the block and it appear the information that is inside that block in my final docx file.
This is my code:
//Word
// Creating the new document...
$templateProcessor = new \PhpOffice\PhpWord\TemplateProcessor('../example.docx');
//set value
//$templateProcessor->setValue('title', 'Example');
//Triplicate block
$templateProcessor->cloneBlock('firstblock', 3, true, true);
$templateProcessor->setValue('firstname#1', 'John');
$templateProcessor->setValue('lastname#1', 'Doe');
$templateProcessor->setValue('firstname#2', 'John');
$templateProcessor->setValue('lastname#2', 'Doe');
$templateProcessor->setValue('firstname#3', 'John');
$templateProcessor->setValue('lastname#3', 'Doe');
//Delete Block
$templateProcessor->cloneBlock('sec', 1, true, true);
$templateProcessor->deleteBlock('sec');
$templateProcessor->saveAs('example.docx');
Docx template:
${firstblock}
Hello ${firstname} ${lastname}!
${/firstblock}
${sec}
example
${/sec}
UPDATE:
Instead of using the function "deleteBlock", I have use the function "cloneBlock" like this and it deletes the block:
//Delete Block
$templateProcessor->cloneBlock('sec', 0, true, true);
So, I have write to clone the block 0 times, so it disappears
But I have another problem. I don´t know why, but this only works sometimes

Answer 1

I'm not sure why user #d1845412 deleted their previous answer, but it actually solved my issue. I overwrote the deleteBlock method with the following code and it seems to work. I prefer this small change over larger changes to the replaceBlock method.
/**
* Override this method since deleteBlock doesn't seem to work.
* #param string $blockname
*/
public function deleteBlock($blockname)
{
$this->cloneBlock($blockname, 0, true, true);
}

Answer 2

Try this. I slightly changed the regexp in replaceBlock, I also added a function that removes unused patterns, it may come in handy) I'll warn you right away - not really testing so use it carefully
class PatchedTemplateProcessor extends TemplateProcessor
{
/**
* Remove ${*} and ${/*} from temporary document
*/
public function removeSearchPatterns()
{
preg_match_all(
'/(\$\{[^\}]*\})/',
$this->tempDocumentMainPart,
$matches,
PREG_SET_ORDER
);
foreach ($matches as $match){
$this->tempDocumentMainPart = str_replace(
$match,
'',
$this->tempDocumentMainPart
);
}
}
/**
* #param string $blockname
* #param string $replacement
*/
public function replaceBlock($blockname, $replacement)
{
$matches = array();
preg_match(
'/(<w:t.*>\${' . $blockname . '}<\/w:.*?t>)(.*)(<w:t.*\${\/' . $blockname . '}<\/w:.*?t>)/is',
$this->tempDocumentMainPart,
$matches
);
if (isset($matches[3])) {
$this->tempDocumentMainPart = str_replace(
$matches[2] . $matches[3],
$replacement,
$this->tempDocumentMainPart
);
}
}
/**
* Delete a block of text.
*
* #param string $blockname
*/
public function deleteBlock($blockname)
{
$this->replaceBlock($blockname, '');
}
}