anonymize emails texts names

[GumSlone]

this function anonymizes emails and names etc

<?php
function anonymize($text='',$char_num=3)
{
    for($i==0;$i<strlen($text);$i++)
    {
        if(($i % $char_num)==0&&ctype_alnum($text[$i]))
            $new_text .= '*';
        else
            $new_text .= $text[$i];
        
    }
    return $new_text;
}

?>

usage

$email = 'someemail@gmail.de';
echo anonymize($email,4); 

output:

*ome*mai*@gm*il.*e