matching multiple return carriages

jpr82

how do i do this??

the following dont seem to work

ereg_replace("\r{2,}", "\r", $string);

i basically want to replace multiple return carriages with a single one.

Thanks. :mad:

Weedpacket

Try + instead of {2,}, but are you trying to match the right character? You don't mean \n or (\r\n), do you?

laserlight

Did you use
$string = ereg_replace("\r{2,}", "\r", $string);
?

Also, depending on your platform, you may have to use "\n" or "\r\n" instead.

jpr82

Thanks for the replies..

laser: yes i do capture return values

i have tried your suggestions and still no luck

i've tried

\r+
\r{2,}
\n+
\n{2,}
\r\n+
\r\n{2,}

nothing seems to work 🙁

jpr82

Can someone give me anymore ideas?

laserlight

Try any of these until 1 works:

$string = ereg_replace("[\r\n]{2,}", "\r\n", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[\r\n]{2,}", "\r", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[\r\n]{2,}", "\n", $string);

My idea is to replace any occurence of carriage returns or newline characters with the corresponding new line character(s).

An even easier method is to open your file in a hex editor and check which is the new line character(s).

leatherback

Hi All,

Just a very stupid question maybe. (I have no clue of the ereg...

But eeeh.. If you try to replace double return.. What will happen to the location where you have three \n's? Yoou will be left with three right? Might that be the problem? You need to add a loop, to go through the text, untill there is no more hits?

Just my 2 cents, most likely way off.. But you never know..

jpr82

thanks laser light, you saved me heaps of time.

laserlight

But eeeh.. If you try to replace double return.. What will happen to the location where you have three \n's? Yoou will be left with three right? Might that be the problem? You need to add a loop, to go through the text, untill there is no more hits?

Nope.
the pattern "[\r\n]{2,}" will match any occurence of "\r" or "\n" that is 2 or more consecutively.
This means that "\n\n\n" will match.

I'm not a regex expert, but I suspect "\n\r\n" will also match.
In any case, it makes no difference here.

np, jpr82 🙂

axo

hi all

you should try this:

$string =  preg_replace("/([\\n\\r]){2,}/", "\\1", $string);

you should use double backslash... a single backslash is an escape character and could be confusing for the regex-machine,
although both double and single backslash work for me.

\1 returns the value found in the () - brackets... which means that the expression should replace "\r\n\r\n" with "\r\n" , "\n\n" with "\n", "\r\r" with "\r" and so on, to remain portable 🙂

generally you should prefer preg_replace to ereg_replace, because it is mostly faster than ereg... 🙂

cya
axo