Determine newline return method in PHP

Question

What would be the best way to detect newline return method in PHP. CR, LF or CR+LF

And if possible convert it to specified type.

Answer 1

This will test a string for a newline character (CR or LF):

function has_newline($string)
{
    return (strpos($string, "\r") !== false || strpos($string, "\n") !== false);
}

(\r means CR and \n means LF)

You can use the same thinking to convert them. For example, this function converts all CRs to LFs in a given string:

function replace_returns($string)
{
    return str_replace("\r", "\n", $string);
}

Answer 2

define('NL_NIX', "\n"); // \n only
define('NL_WIN', "\r\n"); // \r\n
define('NL_MAC', "\r");  // \r only


function newline_type($string){

  if(strpos($string,NL_WIN)!==false){
    return NL_WIN;
  }elseif(strpos($string,NL_MAC)!==false){
    return NL_MAC;
  }elseif(strpos($string,NL_NIX)!==false){
    return NL_NIX;
  }

}

Checks what kind of newline is in the string. 0 is returned when no newline is found.

To normalize/standardize all newlines use the following function:

function newline_convert($string, $nl){
  return str_replace(array(NL_WIN, NL_MAC, NL_NIX), $nl, $string);
}

Hope it helps!

Answer 3

The constant PHP_EOL contains the platform specific newline character.