338

Simple, right? Well, this isn't working :-\

$skuList = explode('\n\r', $_POST['skuList']);
5
  • 32
    Single quotes mean "don't parse this string". @Select0r's answer is probably what you're looking for. Commented Oct 22, 2010 at 13:45
  • 4
    possible duplicate of how to remove new lines and returns from php string? which already was a duplicate of Reliably remove newslines from string and some others. Commented Oct 22, 2010 at 13:46
  • 10
    In addition to the single quotes issued mentioned by others, CRLF pairs are \r\n not the other way around. Commented Oct 22, 2010 at 14:09
  • 2
    Try to remember that: \R etur \N Commented Mar 26, 2019 at 10:04
  • $skuList = explode("\n\r", $_POST['skuList']); should work. it really depends on how your string variable is wrapped up. could be " " or ' ' for $string = 'abc\n\rdef' use $skuList = explode('\n\r', $string); Commented Jan 14, 2021 at 13:26

19 Answers 19

570

Best Practice

As mentioned in the comment to the first answer, the best practice is to use the PHP constant PHP_EOL which represents the current system's EOL (End Of Line).

$skuList = explode(PHP_EOL, $_POST['skuList']);

PHP provides a lot of other very useful constants that you can use to make your code system independent, see this link to find useful and system independent directory constants.

Warning

These constants make your page system independent, but you might run into problems when moving from one system to another when you use the constants with data stored on another system. The new system's constants might be different from the previous system's and the stored data might not work anymore. So completely parse your data before storing it to remove any system dependent parts.

UPDATE

Andreas' comment made me realize that the 'Best Practice' solution I present here does not apply to the described use-case: the server's EOL (PHP) does not have anything to do with the EOL the browser (any OS) is using, but that (the browser) is where the string is coming from.

So please use the solution from @Alin_Purcaru to cover all your bases:

$skuList = preg_split('/\r\n|\r|\n/', $_POST['skuList']);
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6 Comments

You can't use PHP_EOL because the system and the input source have nothing to do with each other. If user put new lines in Windows and the PHP is running on Linux the result may be broken.
@barell exactly, thats the situation i describe in the 'warning' part ;) The question did not explicitly state that it is an old input stored in the database. Please read the 'warning' part and you will see that i cover that situation there.
This answer is just wrong for this use-case. Do not use the PHP_EOL constant in this case as the input source (e.g. the user's browser) is definitely not your system. Use a solution that takes care of all the different line endings (answer from Alin Purcaru).
So if I switch the server and the EOL PHP settings change, then I have a problem whenever I use this command for text from my database?
@Adam yes, you should normalize the strings that you store in your DB and always store them one way or the other, NOT with the systems EOL but one of the two. That way you won't have problems changing systems as all your strings in the DB have the same EOL string.
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311

Cover all cases. Don't rely that your input is coming from a Windows environment.

$skuList = preg_split("/\\r\\n|\\r|\\n/", $_POST['skuList']);

or

$skuList = preg_split('/\r\n|\r|\n/', $_POST['skuList']);

10 Comments

This will result in empty array elements if the eol is \r\n. To prevent that, either use: preg_split('/\n|\r/', $_POST['skuList'], -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY); (note that \r\n becomes unnecessary when using that flag) or simply put the \r\n before the \r: preg_split('/\r\n|\n|\r/', $_POST['skuList']);
@webbiedave PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY is nice, BUT it will delete empty lines. This may or may not be desirable.
This pattern would match every letter for me, because it results in success even if nothing is present. "?" means 0 or one time, so it is possible for it to match even if both \r and \n are not present. You say "fixed" but I don't see that. I used /(\r|\n)+/ instead.
@Rolf It seems I made an edit in a hurry. Corrected it now. What you should use depends on whether you want the empty lines or not in the output. The option from my answer also returns empty lines.
@AlinPurcaru Can you clarify in the answer which (both, either, neither?) will return blanks and which will not?
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161

Try "\n\r" (double quotes) or just "\n".

If you're not sure which type of EOL you have, run a str_replace before your explode, replacing "\n\r" with "\n".

5 Comments

Single quotes in PHP mean "don't parse this string". That means your control characters aren't being parsed, they're being taken as literal (not a line break and a carriage return, but actual, literal '\n\r'). Using double quotes means "parse this string", and thus your control characters will be parsed. +1
/n/r? I know the OP wrote that but the correct windows eol is \r\n
Consider the PHP end of line constant: PHP_EOL.
Hi everyone, this is definitely the right answer ! I'm wondering why did @Alin Purcaru answer got 44 votes.. It's wrong!!! It's not always working correctly although it seems that it does the job.. So here's my comment for anyone stucking on the same thing
Just disregard the \r, the last OS to use it without \n was OS9 ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#Representations ). Therefore this will give you the best results: explode("\n", str_replace("\r", '', $string));
27

It doesn't matter what your system uses as newlines if the content might be generated outside of the system.

I am amazed after receiving all of these answers, that no one has simply advised the use of the \R escape sequence. There is only one way that I would ever consider implementing this in one of my own projects. \R provides the most succinct and direct approach.

https://www.php.net/manual/en/regexp.reference.escape.php#:~:text=line%20break:%20matches%20\n,%20\r%20and%20\r\n

Code: (Demo)

$text = "one\ntwo\r\nthree\rfour\r\n\nfive";

var_export(preg_split('~\R~', $text));

Output:

array (
  0 => 'one',
  1 => 'two',
  2 => 'three',
  3 => 'four',
  4 => '',
  5 => 'five',
)

If you don't want empty elements in your output, then: Demo

  • split on one or more newline sequences via regex engine

    var_export(preg_split('~\R+~', $text));  // may generate empty element at start and/or end of array
    
  • remove elements with no length

    var_export(preg_split('~\R~', $text, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY));
    
  • [BEST] split on one or more newline sequences via regex engine AND remove elements with no length

    var_export(preg_split('~\R+~', $text, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)); 
    

As a consideration for scenarios where the input string may contain multibyte/unicode/accented/diacritic/non-latin characters, add the u pattern modifier to inform the regex engine to process the input string as multibute characters instead of individual bytes. ~\R+~u

4 Comments

The best answer. People should see this, not just the first two answers :)
This type of regex breaks UTF strings, for example ą character is partially considered as newline.
@Grz, then add the u pattern modifier. If this doesn't resolve a scenario that you can reproduce, please offer a 3v4l.org demo for me to observe the problem.
@mickmackusa You are right, the '~\R~u' modifier solves the case. The problem is hard to notice, as only few types of characters are impacted.
15

Lots of things here:

  • You need to use double quotes, not single quotes, otherwise the escaped characters won't be escaped.
  • The normal sequence is \r\n, not \n\r.
  • Depending on the source, you may just be getting \n without the \r (or even in unusual cases, possibly just the \r)

Given the last point, you may find preg_split() using all the possible variants will give you a more reliable way of splitting the data than explode(). But alternatively you could use explode() with just \n, and then use trim() to remove any \r characters that are left hanging around.

Comments

15

try

explode(chr(10), $_POST['skuList']);

Comments

14

this php function explode string by newline

Attention : new line in Windows is \r\n and in Linux and Unix is \n
this function change all new lines to linux mode then split it.
pay attention that empty lines will be ignored

function splitNewLine($text) {
    $code=preg_replace('/\n$/','',preg_replace('/^\n/','',preg_replace('/[\r\n]+/',"\n",$text)));
    return explode("\n",$code);
}

example

$a="\r\n\r\n\n\n\r\rsalam\r\nman khobam\rto chi\n\rche khabar\n\r\n\n\r\r\n\nbashe baba raftam\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n";
print_r( splitNewLine($a) );

output

Array
(
    [0] => salam
    [1] => man khobam
    [2] => to chi
    [3] => che khabar
    [4] => bashe baba raftam
)

1 Comment

There is NO way that I would ever use your snippet. The most direct / sensible technique for your invented string would be var_export(preg_split('~\R+~', $a, 0, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)); Anything else is simply not clever. Demo
9

To preserve line breaks (as blank items in the array):

$skuList = preg_split('/\r\n|\n\r|\r|\n/', $_POST['skuList']);`

This handles the unusual \n\r as well as the usual \n\r, \n and \r. Note that the solution from @Alin_Purcaru is very similar, but doesn't handle \n\r.

To remove line breaks (no blank items in the array):

$skuList = preg_split('/[\r\n]+/', $_POST['skuList']);

PHP Tests
These expressions has been tested on the following OS'es: ubuntu-20.04, ubuntu-18.04, windows-2022, windows-2019, windows-2016, macos-11, macos-10.15 and in the following PHP versions: 8.0, 7.4, 7.3, 7.2, 7.1, 7.0

Here is the PHP test class:
https://github.com/rosell-dk/exec-with-fallback/blob/main/tests/LineSplittingTest.php

And a successful CI run on a project that runs those tests:
https://github.com/rosell-dk/exec-with-fallback/actions/runs/1520070091

Javascript demos of the principle
Here are some javascript demos of similar regular expressions (I'm using N and R instead of \n and \r).

Preserve linebreaks demo: https://regexr.com/6ahvl
Remove linebreaks demo: https://regexr.com/6ai0j

PS: There is currently a bug in regexr which causes it to show "Error" when first loaded. Editing the expression makes the error go away

Comments

8

For a new line, it's just

$list = explode("\n", $text);

For a new line and carriage return (as in Windows files), it's as you posted. Is your skuList a text area?

Comments

8

Place the \n in double quotes:

explode("\n", $_POST['skuList']);

In single quotes, if I'm not mistaken, this is treated as \ and n separately.

Comments

4

Have you tried using double quotes?

Comments

3

As easy as it seems

$skuList = explode('\\n', $_POST['skuList']);

You just need to pass the exact text "\n" and writing \n directly is being used as an Escape Sequence. So "\\" to pass a simple backward slash and then put "n"

Comments

2

Not perfect but I think it must be safest. Add nl2br:

$skuList = explode('<br />', nl2br($_POST['skuList']));

Comments

0

First of all, I think it's usually \r\n, second of all, those are not the same on all systems. That will only work on windows. It's kind-of annoying trying to figure out how to replace new lines because different systems treat them differently (see here). You might have better luck with just \n.

Comments

0

Losing line breaks from posting from input textboxes?
What works faster for me is to copy paste any text or Excel or HTML table type or newline type of data and paste it into a textarea instead of an inputextbox: this keeps the linebreaks intact in the POST.

 <textarea  id="txtArea" name="txtArea" rows="40" cols="170"></textarea>
 <br>
 <input type="submit" value="split lines into array" /> 

in the form receiving file:

 $txtArea ='';  
 $txtArea = $_POST['txtArea'];  
 $TA = $_POST['txtArea'];  
 $string = $TA;  
 $array = preg_split ('/$\R?^/m', $string); 
// or any of these: 
// $array = explode(PHP_EOL,$string);  
// $array = explode("\n", $txtArea); 
 echo "<br>A0: ".$array[0];
 echo "<br>A1: ".@$array[1];
 echo "<br>A2: ".@$array[2];

1 Comment

The anchors in this pattern and the ? are not necessary -- at all.
0

PHP_EOL is ostensibly used to find the newline character in a cross-platform-compatible way, so it handles DOS/Unix issues.

Try this:

$myString = "Prepare yourself to be caught
You in the hood gettin' shot
We going throw hell of blows
got my whole frame froze";

$myArray = explode(PHP_EOL, $myString);

print_r($myArray);

Comments

0

Here is what worked for me. Tested in PHP 5.6 as well as as PHP 7.0:

    $skuList = str_replace("\\r\\n", "\n", $_POST['skuList']);
    $skuList = str_replace("\\n\\r", "\n", $skuList);

    $skuList = preg_split("/\n/", $skuList);
    print_r($skuList);

Comments

-1

This method always works for me:

$uniquepattern="@#$;?:~#abcz"//Any set of characters which you dont expect to be present in user input $_POST['skuList'] better use atleast 32 charecters.
$skuList=explode($uniquepattern,str_replace("\r","",str_replace("\n",$uniquepattern,$_POST['skuList'])));

1 Comment

This answer is utter nonsense. str_replace() doesn't receive patterns, nor does it receive character masks.
-1

Try this:

explode(PHP_EOF, $lines);

1 Comment

Surely PHP_EOL rather than EOF

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