remove newline characters from a string

[cberg76]

Hello,

What is the easiest method to remove newline characters from a string?

Basically, I'd like it to function like this:

$newstring = rmNewline($oldstring);

The newstring should now have no newline characters '\n'

Thanks!

[Stephen Philbin]

PHP Code:

$newstring = preg_replace("/[\n\r]/","",$subject);


Should do it. Where $subject is the original string you're wanting to remove the newlines from.

[cberg76]

Worked flawlessly! I appreciate your assistance. Thank you very much. I knew there must be some library method so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. thanks for the extra help with the tricky syntax too that would have got me next. I recognize the 2nd and 3rd parameters but the 1st one has some tricky syntax. You da man!

[BeachSide]

or you could go the less overhead route (not using the reg_ex engine) and simply use trim...

PHP Code:

$string = "This is a string with a newline in it\n";

$newString = trim($string);


Not necessarily better than Mr H's method just a different way of doing it

[NogDog]

Originally Posted by BeachSide

or you could go the less overhead route (not using the reg_ex engine) and simply use trim...

PHP Code:

$string = "This is a string with a newline in it\n";

$newString = trim($string);


Not necessarily better than Mr H's method just a different way of doing it

However, trim() would only take care of newlines at the very beginning or end of the string, but would not work for something like "This is a\nstring with two\nnewlines in the middle.", in which case I'd probably want to replace them with space characters:

PHP Code:

$newstring = str_replace("\n", " ", $oldstring);


If you don't want the possibility of adding leading/trailing spaces to the string, then combine with trim():

PHP Code:

$newstring = str_replace("\n", " ", trim($oldstring));


[BeachSide]

Originally Posted by NogDog

However, trim() would only take care of newlines at the very beginning or end of the string, but would not work for something like "This is a\nstring with two\nnewlines in the middle.", in which case I'd probably want to replace them with space characters:

PHP Code:

$newstring = str_replace("\n", " ", $oldstring);


If you don't want the possibility of adding leading/trailing spaces to the string, then combine with trim():

PHP Code:

$newstring = str_replace("\n", " ", trim($oldstring));


AH HAH! See man that is why you are great! I didn't even think about that scenerio.

[Stephen Philbin]

Actually, you both had good points. I've been arseing about with preg_replace() so much lately I'd forgotten str_replace() and str_ireplace() even existed. Both of those are faster and less "cpu expensive" than preg_replace, but Zooper-Nog here also pointed out that there may also be newlines with no space characters on either side of it. Applying my response to such a case would cause the words of either side to get concatenated, which wouldn't be too helpful. To fix such a problem we would have to chuck str_replace() and str_ireplace out in favour of preg_reaplace, but I lack the know-how to complete the function. I'll write the function as much as I can, but you'll have to wait for someone more knowledgeable than I to complete it.

Here goes:

PHP Code:


function kill_dem_durdy_noo_lynz($input)
{
    $find = array(
    "[\n\r]((?![^ ])|(A non-capturing look behind for a space))",
    "[\n\r]((?! )(A non-capturing negative look behind for a space))"
    );
    
    $replace = array(
    "",
    " "
    );
    
    return preg_replace($find,$replace,$input);
}


I dunno how to do look behinds in regexp (non-capturing or otherwise), but if anyone can fill that gap, I think that that function should do all that is required.

Oh yeah, ya might wanna rename the function to something slightly more paractical too.