Replace only the first occurence of multiple whitespace with new line

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Replace only first match using preg_replace

I have a string as follows:

a     quick brown      fox jumps    over a lazy dog

and I want the result to be

a
quick brown      fox jumps     over a lazy dog

Want to replace only the first occurrence of multiple(more than 1) whitespace with a newline, but leave the other multiple whitespaces after that untouched.

How can I do that with preg_replace?

Thanks

Answer 1

echo preg_replace('/\s{2,}/', "\n", $string, 1);

From the PHP documentation, the fourth argument to preg_replace is an optional limit, limiting the number of times the pattern should be replaced.

Answer 2

Use the optional fourth parameter, setting the limit of replacements made for the pattern:

$str = preg_replace( "/\s{2,}/", PHP_EOL, $str, 1 );

Demonstration: http://codepad.org/Kocnyryj

Answer 3

Use preg_replace()'s $limit to only replace one occurrence.

$string = preg_replace("/\s\s+/", "\n", $string, 1); // \s\s+ to replace 2 or more
// Where  preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $subject, $limit);

$limit The max possible replacements for each pattern in each subject string. Defaults to -1 (no limit).