Question

Hi everyone I had previously posted about a <br> getting inserted at the beginning of my text and we got that fixed. (here is my previous post with the code) I changed the code as suggested from

$x = preg_replace("/<br>/i","\n",$x);

to

   $x = preg_replace("/^<br(\/|)>/i","\n",$x);

which worked to stop the <br> from being inserted at the beginning but now it is inserting one at the end. How do I stop that from happening?

SOLUTION

$x = preg_replace("/^<br(\/|)>/i","\n",$x);
Jacks solution— //$x = preg_replace('#^<br(\/|)>+|<br(\/|)>+$#i', "\n", $x);
My fix in addition to the original preg_replace

$x= preg_replace("/(^)?(<br\s*\/?>\s*)+$/","\n", $x);


UPDATE

it is no longer adding <br> each time it is submitted but there are now two<br> after the text that only show up in the database and are not brought out in the editor. I need to get rid of these breaks!

Answer 1

This should do it, matches <br>, <br/> or <br /> at the start or end:

preg_replace('#^<br(\s*/)?>|<br(\s*/)?>$#i', "\n", $str);

The tag is matched by:
* Literal <br
* Optional spaces followed by a forward slash

The | in the middle is used to denote an alternative condition (i.e. OR).

Edit

Instead of <br(\s*/)?> you can also write <br(\/|)> that you had before.

Edit 2

Multiple occurrences can be matched by just adding + behind each pattern:

preg_replace('#^<br(\/|)>+|<br(\/|)>+$#i', "\n", $str);