Question

Got a problem with preg_replace in a textarea. “$” or the “m” modifier are not working properly here:

<?php

$text = '1 - 2 - 3
a - b - c
foo - bar - baz';

$text_replaced = preg_replace('/^(.*) - (.*) - (.*)$/m', '$1 - $2 "$3"', $text); 

echo '
​<textarea rows=20 cols=20>
'.$text_replaced.'
</textarea>​​​​​​​​
';

should return

1 - 2 "3"
a - b "c"
foo - bar "baz"

but it returns

1 - 2 "3
"
a - b "c
"
foo - bar "baz"

How can this be solved?

Try yourself: http://codepad.viper-7.com/LqgDHg

Answer 1

By default . matches everything apart from \n (LF). You however use Windows style \r\n (CRLF) line breaks. Thus \r is included in the match.

What you probably want is this:

preg_replace('/(*ANYCRLF)^(.*) - (.*) - (.*)$/m', '$1 - $2 "$3"', $text);

The (*ANYCRLF) modifier changes the meaning of . towards accepting all characters apart from \r and \n.