Problem with Formatting when there's a <pre> tag

AliceH

i'm creating a news system for programmers, and when displaying an article I convert \n to <br />. This works just fine until the programmers begin using html's <pre></pre> tags.

The <pre></pre> tags will show the news lines without the conversion. So when the conversion takes place, double spacing occurs!

I came up with this, but it doesn't work:

  // take out pre before replacing \n with <br />
  $index = 0;
  while(preg_match("'<pre>.*</pre>'ms", $article['article']) != "")
  {
    // pull out the statement
    $myStash[$index] = preg_match("'<pre>.*</pre>'ms", $article['article']);
    $article['article'] = preg_replace("'<pre>.*</pre>'ms", "{-$i-}", $article['article']);
    $index++;
  }

  // do the replacement
  $article['article'] = preg_replace("'\n'", "<br />", $article['article']);

  // shove em back in
  for($i = 0; $i < $index; $i++)
  {
    // pull out the statement
    $article['article'] = preg_replace("'{-$i-}'", $myStash[$i], $article['article']);
  }

  echo $article['article'];

The problem i'm getting is...
Regualar expression is empty on this line:
$article['article'] = preg_replace("'\n'", "<br />", $article['article']);

Any suggestions or different ideas to solve this problem?

LordShryku

$article['article'] = @str_replace("<pre>", "", $article['article']);
$article['article'] = @str_replace("</pre>", "", $article['article']);
$article['article'] = nl2br($article['article']);

AliceH

did you even read the post?

AliceH

this is the answer:

function nl2br_pre($string, $wrap = 40) {
$string = nl2br($string);

preg_match_all("/<pre[^{>]?>(.|\n)?<\/pre>/",} $string, $pre1);

for ($x = 0; $x < count($pre1[0]); $x++) {
$pre2[$x] = preg_replace("/<br[^>]*?>/", "", $pre1[0][$x]);
$pre2[$x] = preg_replace("/([^{\n]{".$wrap."})(?!<\/pre>)/",} "$1\n", $pre2[$x]);
$pre1[0][$x] = "/".preg_quote($pre1[0][$x], "/")."/";
}

return preg_replace($pre1[0], $pre2, $string);
}

Moonglobe

actually... LordShryku's is the answer, if you want your code to not look horribly ugly.

LordShryku

I don't know why I even bother sometimes.....

Moonglobe

there there Lord, there's always gonna be the few that don't listen... those you help make up for it 🙂

AliceH

and just why is his code right?
all it does is get rid of the <pre> tags and then uses the function nl2br. What does that have to do with my post?

I wanted a function that would go through the code and perform nl2br except inbetween <pre> tags.

Am I missing something?

Moonglobe

no we were missing something, because you didnt state your problem properly.

AliceH

Originally posted by LordShryku
I don't know why I even bother sometimes.....

Don't bother unless you read the post.

LordShryku

Write a post which accurately describes your problem, and this won't happen. But don't worry, I won't bother with you again. Though, I doubt after seeing this that any of the pro's will look at your posts.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by LordShryku
Write a post which accurately describes your problem,

And while you're about it, say what it's supposed to do. How are we supposed to know?