phpregexsplitnewline

Inject newlines into string to show list items on their own line

I have this string :

$str= 'To do list: - Buy milk - Feed cat';

How can I inject newlines to put the list items on their own line?

To do list:
- Buy milk
- Feed cat

I was thinking of creating a regular expression that checks if the string contains : or - characters and then add a <br> tag to each of the matches ..after splitting by those parameters...

Solution

  • No need to explode, you can very easily convert the input text in the desired format using regex:

    \s*(-\s*)

    and replace with \n$1 or (<br> instead of \n as per your requirement)

    Live demo here

    Sample code in php using preg_replace:

    $re = '/\s*(-\s*)/';
$str = 'To do list: - Buy milk - Feed cat';
$subst = '\\n$1';

$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);

echo $result; //To do list:\n- Buy milk\n- Feed cat