[RESOLVED] Count lines

steven1350

I am requiring a specific functionality that can count the number of lines present inside a variable.

For example, "this\nis\nsome\nsample data" would return 4.

Is there any way to do this?

EDIT: I forgot to mention to the text being dealt with also contains HTML, so something like <p></p> would add an extra line too

nrg_alpha

If by this you mean using a backslash as a delimiter, you could do something like this:

$str = 'this\nis\nsome\nsample data';
$amount = count(explode('\\', $str));
echo $amount; // ouput: 4

steven1350

nrg_alpha;10914550 wrote:
If by this you mean using a backslash as a delimiter, you could do something like this:
$str = 'this\nis\nsome\nsample data';
$amount = count(explode('\\', $str));
echo $amount; // ouput: 4

Now why didnt I think of that 😕

Also, just to be good form, would this work?

$str = 'this\nis\nsome\nsample data';
$amount = count(explode('\n', $str));
echo $amount; // ouput: 4

nrg_alpha

Yes, sorry.. I didn't notice the n after every slash.. so I only say the \ as the dleimiter.. so yep, \n would work too!

steven1350

I tried this, but it isnt working. Not because your code is wrong, but my variable I am gathering data from does not have a '\n' character. That data is simply on a new line.

How do I read the number of lines like this?

nrg_alpha

Can you give an example string (and what you are trying to count)?

steven1350

nrg_alpha;10914590 wrote:
Can you give an example string (and what you are trying to count)?

this is
a sample string
where I
expect the
output to
evaluate to 6

nrg_alpha

Oh I see.. I noticed you encapsulated \n in single quotes.. must be double quotes:

$str = 'this is
a sample string
where I
expect the
output to
evaluate to 6 ';

$amount = count(explode("\n", $str));
echo $amount;

I suppose another way would be to use substr_count() to achieve the same thing:

echo substr_count($str, "\n")+1;

steven1350

nrg_alpha;10914598 wrote:
Oh I see.. I noticed you encapsulated \n in single quotes.. must be double quotes:
$amount = count(explode("\n", $str));
echo $amount;

worked perfectly, thank you for that correction (used to return 1, now its better)

nrg_alpha

By the way, if by some odd chance there incorrect amount of newlines (like say at the absolute beginning or end of a string, you can throw the string into a trim() function first:

$amount = count(explode("\n", trim($str, "\n")));

EDIT - Please don't forget to flag this thread as resolved.

steven1350

my bad, marked as solved now