PHP: Explode textarea lines as separate array element

Question

I have a textarea that contains phone numbers, each number in a separate line. I want to explode that string into an array using

explode("\n", $numbers);

or

explode("\r\n", $numbers);

This is not working. Please, help me. Thanks!

Did you mean to write `explode("\n", $numbers);` or `explode("\r\n", $numbers);`? Or are you actually writing both statements right next to each other as a single line like that? — Ben D, Feb 20 '12 at 14:42
You should post a little more code, the HTML form as well as a little more surrounding code. — h00ligan, Feb 20 '12 at 15:26
`explode("\r\n", $numbers);` suppose to work.. well it is working for me. — I'll-Be-Back, Mar 13 '13 at 15:44

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 20 '12 at 14:29

10

$records = preg_split('/[\r\n]+/', $mystring, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

This should do it.

answered Feb 20 '12 at 14:29

Frederick Behrends

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score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 20 '12 at 14:36

10

As the manual states: Returns an array of strings.

So you'll have to store the result. The or won't work that way either. If you don't know whether the input will contain \n or \r\n, you could do a replace to replace \r by an empty string, then explode on \n.

This should do the trick:

$numbers = explode("\n", str_replace("\r", "", $numbers));

answered Feb 20 '12 at 14:36

CodeCaster

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you're right, of course. User submitted data may not translate to the system EOL. comment withdrawn. – Ben D Feb 20 '12 at 14:58

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 05 '16 at 14:57

Use this

<?php

 $input = $_POST['textarea_name'];
 $new_array = array_values(array_filter(explode(PHP_EOL, $input)));

 // explode -> convert textarea to php array (that lines split by new line)
 // array_filter -> remove empty lines from array
 // array_values -> reset keys of array

?>

PHP: Explode textarea lines as separate array element

3 Answers3