How to parse \n symbols in text from text area with PHP

Question

I have a text area, I need parse text when form is submitted.

For example I need to get first string from this text area, get it and left whole text as is. I don't want to use nl2br function and then use pattern with <br />. Can I just parse \n chars and if so how? I can't do it in my php code, but I can in regex tester link to example is below.

http://regex101.com/r/mK7hF2

this is my code that doesn't work:

preg_match('/(.+)\n\n/', $_POST['text'],$title);

$title = $title[0];

echo $title;

it returns nothing. Help me to change this, thanks.

EDIT

enter image description here

Use double-quotes. [RTFM](http://php.net/string) – Niet the Dark Absol Jun 24 '14 at 15:21 — Niet the Dark Absol, Jun 24 '14 at 15:21

Danijel · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-24T15:51:51.067

3

You don't need regular expressions for this, use strtok:

$title = strtok( $_POST['text'], "\n" );

Edit

Ok, try then with \R to match any type of line endings '/(.+)\R/'

edited Jun 24 '14 at 15:51

answered Jun 24 '14 at 15:33

Danijel

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at least it work =), but I'm looking for regex solution. If I didn't found another solution for exactly my question I will mark this as right answer. – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 15:41
that's made it! as @hwnd said `this matches Unicode newlines sequences` this must be the case. – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 16:35

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 24 '14 at 15:26

1

This should work in php:

$re = '/(.+)\n\n/'; 
$str = "first string\n\nsecond string\n\nother strings bla bla bla"; 
if (preg_match($re, $str, $matches))
   echo $matches[1];
else
   echo "nope";

OUTPUT:

first string

It is important to use double quotes in input $str so that \n is interpreted as newline character.

Working Demo

answered Jun 24 '14 at 15:26

anubhava

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this definitely work with this example, but doesn't with `$_POST['text']` (this is text area). Why? – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 15:31
Can you show output of `var_dump($_POST['text']);` ? – anubhava Jun 24 '14 at 15:34
string(46) "first string second string other strings" – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 15:39
That means where is no `\n` in your input string. Try this regex: **`$re = '/(\S+)/';`** – anubhava Jun 24 '14 at 16:17
this pattern is work. But I don't understand why there is no `\n`? I'll add the text area screenshot to my question for you to see that there must be `\n`. By the way, if I use `nl2br` text formatting looks like in text area so, there must be `\n` to replace it with `
`. – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 16:30
@Danijel was right, `\R` made it. I will use this solution . Thanks for your help. – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 16:34

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

1

Use \R instead for this case. By default this matches Unicode newline sequences.

preg_match('/(.+)\R+/', $_POST['text'], $title);
echo $title[1];

Reference:

PHP Regex: How to match \r and \n?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

Community

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answered Jun 24 '14 at 16:21

hwnd

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thanks for your response, Danijel was the first who offer this and this is work for me, thanks for help. – Dima Deplov Jun 24 '14 at 16:37
@flinth no worries, I would check out the reference answer if you ever run into this problem again, it explains `\R` – hwnd Jun 24 '14 at 16:38

How to parse \n symbols in text from text area with PHP

3 Answers3

OUTPUT: