How to convert multiple <br/> tag to a single <br/> tag in php

Question

Wanted to convert

<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>

into

<br/>

Answer 1

Use a regular expression to match <br/> one or more times, then use preg_replace (or similar) to replace with <br/> such as levik's reply.

Answer 2

You can do this with a regular expression:

preg_replace("/(<br\s*\/?>\s*)+/", "<br/>", $input);

This if you pass in your source HTML, this will return a string with a single <br/> replacing every run of them.

Answer 3

You probably want to use a Regular Expression. I haven't tested the following, but I believe it's right.

$text = preg_replace( "/(<br\s?\/?>)+/i","<br />", $text );

Answer 4

Mine is almost exactly the same as levik's (+1), just accounting for some different br formatting:

preg_replace('/(<br[^>]*>\s*){2,}/', '<br/>', $sInput);

Answer 5

without preg_replace, but works only in PHP 5.0.0+

$a = '<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />';
while(($a = str_ireplace('<br /><br />', '<br />', $a, $count)) && $count > 0)
{}
// $a becomes '<br />'

Answer 6

Enhanced readability, shorter, produces correct output regardless of attributes:

preg_replace('{(<br[^>]*>\s*)+}', '<br/>', $input);

Answer 7

Thanks all.. Used Jakemcgraw's (+1) version

Just added the case insensative option..

{(<br[^>]*>\s*)+}i

Great tool to test those Regular expressions is:

http://www.spaweditor.com/scripts/regex/index.php

Answer 8

A fast, non regular-expression approach:

while(strstr($input, "<br/><br/>"))
{
    $input = str_replace("<br/><br/>", "<br/>", $input);
}