I have a textarea where a user can enter text like this:
**Title 1**
aaa
bbb
ccc
**Title 2**
xxx
yyy
zzz
I convert it to the following result:
Title 1
> aaa
> bbb
> ccc
Title 2
> xxx
> yyy
> zzz
So:
- Everything between two asterixes gets converted to bold text
- Every new line gets a
>placed before the line
The problem is that the result gets converted to this:
Title 1
> aaa
> bbb
> ccc
>
Title 2
> xxx
> yyy
> zzz
>
Empty new lines also get a >... This should not be the case. How do I filter out all the empty new lines?
Test code:
<html>
<style>
.product-desc-section {
text-transform: uppercase;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 1em;
}
</style>
<form method="post" action="">
<textarea name="text"></textarea>
<br><input type="submit" name="btnTest" value="test">
</form>
<?php
if (isset($_POST['btnTest'])) {
$text = $_POST['text'];
$text = preg_replace("/[\r\n]+/", "\n", $text);
$text = preg_replace('#\*{2}(.*?)\*{2}#', "<br><br><span class='product-desc-section'>$1</span>", htmlspecialchars($text));
$text = preg_replace('~[\r\n]+~', "<br><span class='new-line'>> </span>", $text);
echo "<pre>".$text."</pre>";
}
?>
</html>
Test-input:
**Title 1**
a
b
c
**Title 2**
x
y
z
Output:
Title 1
> a
> b
> c
>
Title 2
> x
> y
> z
Expected output:
Title 1
> a
> b
> c
Title 2
> x
> y
> z
How do I only place a >-icon on every new line which is not empty?
My Answer:
You can achieve this by using a negative lookahead in your regex pattern to exclude empty lines. Here's the updated code:
php
if (isset($_POST['btnTest'])) {
$text = $_POST['text'];
$text = preg_replace("/[\r\n]+/", "\n", $text);
$text = preg_replace('#\*{2}(.*?)\*{2}#', "
$1", htmlspecialchars($text));
$text = preg_replace('~\n(?!$)~', "
> ", $text);
echo "".$text."
";
}
In the updated regex pattern `~\n(?!$)~`, `(?!$)` is a negative lookahead that asserts that the newline character is not followed by the end of the string. This way, only non-empty newlines will have the `>` icon placed before them.
Now, when you input the test data:
**Title 1**
a
b
c
**Title 2**
x
y
z
You should get the expected output:
Title 1
> a
> b
> c
Title 2
> x
> y
> z
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