PHP formatting list items

Question

I want to convert following text into list items

* Item 1
* Item 2

- item 1
- item 2

to

<ul>
  <li>Item 1</li>
  <li>Item 2</li>
</ul>

I have made following regex which is not good enough for this

$text = preg_replace('#(*\s[*.]\s*)#','<li>$0</li>', $text);

but that does not work. I am not good at making RE.

I am making question more clear here.

A text may contain bullets or may not and I cant loop through the file as atno suggested.

Here are the samples

* HTML *SEO * Javascript * PHP

- HTML
- SEO
-Javascript
-PHP

-HTML - SEO -Javascript -PHP

are you trying to create a markdown system like stackoverflow and github use ? — RobertPitt
– RobertPitt, Commented May 29, 2011 at 23:49
Why not support a complete markup language, like Markdown, and let a parser do the job for you? — Felix Kling
– Felix Kling, Commented May 29, 2011 at 23:49
@jason show us a bit more code, how does the text you're retrieving from the database looks like — afarazit
– afarazit, Commented May 29, 2011 at 23:50
@atno: That's not really relevant. All the information you need to know is in the question. — user142162
– user142162, Commented May 29, 2011 at 23:51

Pollett · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-30 00:24:17Z

2

So maybe something along the lines of:

<?PHP
$text = <<<Text
* HTML *SEO * Javascript * PHP

- HTML
- SEO
-Javascript
-PHP

-HTML - SEO -Javascript -PHP
Text;

$text = preg_replace('/(\*|-)\s*([\S]+)\s*/',"<li>$2</li>\n",$text);

print $text;
?>

which gives an output of:

<li>HTML</li>
<li>SEO</li>
<li>Javascript</li>
<li>PHP</li>
<li>HTML</li>
<li>SEO</li>
<li>Javascript</li>
<li>PHP</li>
<li>HTML</li>
<li>SEO</li>
<li>Javascript</li>
<li>PHP</li>

answered May 30, 2011 at 0:24

Pollett

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4 Comments

afarazit Over a year ago

+1 for you, i was about to paste my solution but i wasn't using preg_replace as i'm not familiar with

Maximus Over a year ago

we still need to sort out <ul></ul>

Pollett Over a year ago

@jason, where do you want the <ul>'s, I was presuming they'd just be at the start and end!

Maximus Over a year ago

these list items can be anywhere in the text or it may not be at all

mpen · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-31 16:15:54Z

1

A little nasty to do with regular expressions, but here you go:

<?php
$text = <<<TEXT
* HTML *SEO * Javascript * PHP

- HTML
- SEO
-Javascript
-PHP

-HTML - SEO -Javascript -PHP
TEXT;

$text = preg_replace_callback('`([*-]\s*([^*-\r\n]+)(\r?\n)?)+`', function($m) {
    $str = '<ul>';
    $str .= preg_replace('`[*-]\s*([^*-\r\n]+)\s*`', '<li>$1</li>', $m[0]);
    $str .= '</ul>';
    return $str;
}, $text);

echo $text;

I get this as output:

*snip* clarification changes output

edited May 31, 2011 at 16:15

answered May 30, 2011 at 0:59

mpen

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2 Comments

Maximus Over a year ago

This is the best solution, however I am still trying to make it perfect. I am trying to convert only those list items which are more than one for example *a *b - c *d - e * f * g in this case a and b will be converted into list items and f and g only. I have written following RE #(*\s*([^*\r\n]+)([*\r\n*]))# This works fine except it does not work for last item say g.

mpen Over a year ago

oh, I was assuming you didn't want to mix list types. I deliberately did it this way so they'd be converted to separate lists, and blank lines in between would also end the list. should be able to replace the \* with [*-] instead in the first block (it's in there twice) and then just scrap the second part. here..i'll edit, but cant test here

Ibu · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-30 00:26:31Z

0

ok this is the best i can come up with but it solve part of the problem, maybe someone else can find a better

// first i remove the spaces after the hyphen, like in '- SEO' to have some consistency 
$str = str_replace ('- ','-', $str); 

// then i look for hyphen-word-new line  and replace it with the format i want.
$list = preg_replace('#\-(.*)\n#',"<li>$1</li>\n", $str);

Obviously this will not be completely correct because you still need the <ul> tag. so good luck!

answered May 30, 2011 at 0:26

Ibu

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