Question

i use nicEdit to write RTF data in my CMS. The problem is that it generates strings like this:

hello first line<br><br />this is a second line<br />this is a 3rd line

since this is for a news site, i much prefer the final html to be like this:

<p>hello first line</p><p>this is a second line<br />this is a 3rd line</p>

so my current solution is this:

1. i need to trim the $data for <br /> at the start/end of the string
2. replace all strings that have 2 <br/> or more with </p><p> (one single <br /> is allowed).
3. finally, add <p> at the start and </p> at the end

i only have steps 1 and 3 so far. can someone give me a hand with step 2?

function replace_br($data) {
 # step 1
 $data = trim($data,'<p>');
 $data = trim($data,'</p>');
 $data = trim($data,'<br />');
 # step 2 ???
 // preg_replace() ?
 # step 3
 $data = '<p>'.$data.'</p>';
 return $data;
}

thanks!

ps: it would be even better to avoid specific situations. example: “hello<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />too much space” — those 5 breaklines should also be converted to just one “</p><p>“

final solution (special thanks to kemp!)

function sanitize_content($data) {
    $data = strip_tags($data,'<p>,<br>,<img>,<a>,<strong>,<u>,<em>,<blockquote>,<ol>,<ul>,<li>,<span>');
    $data = trim($data,'<p>');
    $data = trim($data,'</p>');
    $data = trim($data,'<br />');
    $data = preg_replace('#(?:<br\s*/?>\s*?){2,}#','</p><p>',$data);
    $data = '<p>'.$data.'</p>';
    return $data;
}

Answer 1

This will work even if the two <br>s are on different lines (i.e. there is a newline or any whitespace between them):

function replace_br($data) {
    $data = preg_replace('#(?:<br\s*/?>\s*?){2,}#', '</p><p>', $data);
    return "<p>$data</p>";
}