Question

I have a comma delimited list I want to import into a database, and in some cases the last item is blank:

item1, item2, item3
item1, item2,
item1, item2,

I’d like to replace all of these empty columns with a placeholder value using a regexp

item1, item2, item3
item1, item2, PLACEHOLDER
item1, item2, PLACEHOLDER

I tried this:

preg_replace("/,\n/", ",PLACEHOLDER\n",$csv);

…but it isn’t working. Anyone know what regexp would work for this?

Answer 1

preg_replace("/,\s*$/m", ", PLACEHOLDER\n", $csv); should do it. This pattern matches a comma, followed by any number of spaces, followed by the end of the line, and replaces it with your placeholder text.