Remove Carriege Returns

[bnc123]

I get input from the textarea of an HTML form. I store it in a database file. It is normal for people to hit the carriage return (enter) key a couple of times at the end of a paragraph, and start a new one with a blank line inbetween paragraphs.

So far, so good.

I replace the carriage returns \n"; with <br> using the conventional method.

However, you get these people every once in a while, who hit the enter key about 15 times once they have finished typing.

So my question is: How do I retain the carriage returns inbetween paragraphs, but get rid of the carriage returns after the last paragraph?

 

[vanbroo]

$text =~ /^(.*?)\n*$/$1/;

 

[KevinADC]

or:

$text =~ s/\n+$//;

 

[bnc123]

Sorry Guys,

Kevin's method does not work.

And vanbroo's method gives me the error:
Scalar found where operator expected at post_sug.cgi line 127, near "/^(.*?)\n*$/$1"

 

[duncdude]

this works (for me!):-

[b]#!/usr/bin/perl[/b]

undef $/;
$text = <DATA>;
$/ = "\n";

$text =~ s/\n{2,}//g;

print $text . "|END";

__DATA__
blah blah
blah blah blah
blah blah
blah blah blah
blah blah
blah blah blah

... there are 15 hard returns after the last bit of readable text ;-)


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[duncdude]

before anybody says "but that will delete all double hard returns" - my response is "... so what? it won't hurt - will it!?"


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[KevinADC]

the OP wants to retain except for the last paragraph, which I assume is the end of the string. My code should work if it's \n (newlines) but if it's \r\n it will need to be changed to:

$text =~ s/(\r\n)+$//;

 

[duncdude]

Hi Kevin

Well he's already replaced all the carriage returns with <br>'s - hasn't he?


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[duncdude]

tired.

[b]#!/usr/bin/perl[/b]

undef $/;
$text = <DATA>;
$/ = "\n";

@lines = split(/\n/, $text);

while ($lines[-1] =~ m/^\s*$/) {
  pop @lines;
}

$text = join("\n", @lines);

print "$text|END";

__DATA__
blah blah
blah blah blah
blah blah
blah blah blah
blah blah
blah blah blah












blah

... and can't think of an easier way than this!?


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[KevinADC]

yes, so I am confused why my regular expression isn't doing what the OP wants. I suspect there is something else going on.

 

[duncdude]

Weird... ;-)


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[bnc123]

Well, I tried lots of combinations and here is what worked atlast:

$text =~ s/(\r\n)+$//;
$text =~ s/\n/<br>/g;
$text =~ s/\r//g;

The first line did not do it by itself, the first and second lines did not do it by themselves. I had to introduce the third line to get it working.

Thanks Kevin, duncdude and vanbroo for helping me out.

 

[KevinADC]

that makes sense, you would want to remove the trailing \n's first before replacing the rest with <br>.