line breaks

Hello I have this code below that converts all types of line breaks to \r\n.

$text = preg_replace('#[\r\n]+#', "\n", $text);

But if there are 5 line breaks it groups them to 1.  I want to keep the number of line breaks the same, just make them all the same format.    If I remove the + it seems to double the actual number of line breaks.  Can anyone help?

Just use str_replace as this is rather simple:

$text = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $text);

You generally only want to use the preg functions when you need advance replacement / finding of contents inside a string. Since you do not, str_replace will due and would be preferred.

But would

$text = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $text);

Repace \r\n and \r and \n or just \r\n

Just \r\n. Please do not create multiple topics on the same subject. One will suffice, for future reference.

Try this for your preg code:

$text = preg_replace("#[\r\n]+#", "\n", $text);

As the \r\n characters are taken literally inside of single quotes, but inside of double quotes they are the actual linebreak characters.

EDIT:

If you want to be able to see it by reading it you can use this to verify that it works:

$text = preg_replace("#[\r\n]+#", " REPLACED ", $text);

That way, any \n, \r etc characters that get replaced are visible by the REPLACED word.

If i take the text

a

b

and put it into the function the one line break get doubled.

e.g  a\r\nb goes to a\r\n\r\nb what am I doing wrong.  I just want to convert all types of line breaks to \r\n and keep the number of line breaks.

I do not know how you are getting double line breaks. Using this code it:

<?php
$text = "this is just \r test \r\n text inside \n of text \n\r more text";

$text2 = preg_replace("#[\r\n]+#", "REPLACED", $text);
echo $text2 . "<br /><pre>";

$text = preg_replace("#[\r\n]+#", "\n", $text);
echo $text;
?>

Displays this:

this is just REPLACED test REPLACED text inside REPLACED of text REPLACED more text

this is just 
test 
text inside 
of text 
more text

Like it should.

but what if there are two line breaks as below:

$text = "this is just \r test \r\n\r\n text inside \n of text \n\r more text";

the echo should be:

this is just

test

text inside

of text

more text

but instead it is:

this is just

test

text inside

of text

more text

How can I keep the multiple line breaks?

<?php
$text = "this is just \r test \r\n text inside \n of text \n\r more text \r\n\r\n after the window \n\r\n\r ok";

$text = preg_replace("#[\r\n]{1,2}#", "\n", $text);
echo $text;

Should give:

this is just 
test 
text inside 
of text 
more text 

after the window 

ok

Thats exactly what I wanted.  Can you please tell me how "#[\r\n]{1,2}#" achieves what I wanted, what does the 1 and 2 do.

Will this code work for multiple lines in a row or is there a limit.

Thanks.

It will match the following:

\n

\r

\r\n

\n\r

The 1,2 means it will only match 1 or both of those items and no more, the + would match any number of characters \r\n\n\r as long as they were sequential and replace them once. 

Thanks for the help.