Reading line by line from variable

[spstieng]

I know how to read line by line from a file, but how do I do this from a variable?

I read a textfile into $buffer.
Then I replace '\n' with '<br>' tags and store the contents in a variable called $content.

Hmm.. I can see a problem arising. I have removed the \n tags, so it will all be one long string now.........

So I will not be able to read line by line from a variable.

What I am trying to accomplish is:
mytext.txt might look like
21.05.2003
some text
some more text
01.06.2003
just one line of text
EOF

1) Read line by line
2) Check to see if the line is in date format.
3) If date format , output the text within <td> tags.
4) Read rest of line until next date format, and output text within <td> tags.
5) Until EOF.

Is there a simple way of doing this?
The text between the dates, must replace the '\n' with '<br>'.

Cheers!

[TheIceman5]

use an array.

and use preg_replace or eregi_replace to change the /n to <br>

[laserlight]

use nl2br(), since it will not remove EOL yet adds html line breaks.

[spstieng]

Thanks guys.
I think I'll play around with nl2br().

PHP has got so many function, and finding the right one in the manual isn't always easy - or quick! 😃

I also found strtotime()
This little thing returns true or false if the line read is a valid date.
So the solution I came up with (before I read this) was read line by line from file, and check if it is a date or not.
I'm not sure if there is a more efficient way of doing it (quicker).

Thanks!