PHP: Delete first four lines from the top in content stored in a variable

Question

I have a variable that needs the first four lines stripped out before being displayed:

Error Report Submission
From: First Last, [email protected], 12345
Date: 2009-04-16 04:33:31 pm Eastern

The content to be output starts here and can go on for any number of lines.

I need to remove the 'header' from this data before I display it as part of a 'pending error reports' view.

Answer 1

Mmm. I am sure someone is going to come up with something nifty/shorter/nicer, but how about:

$str = implode("\n", array_slice(explode("\n", $str), 4));

If that is too unsightly, you can always abstract it away:

function str_chop_lines($str, $lines = 4) {
    return implode("\n", array_slice(explode("\n", $str), $lines));
}

$str = str_chop_lines($str);

EDIT: Thinking about it some more, I wouldn't recommend using the str_chop_lines function unless you plan on doing this in many parts of your application. The original one-liner is clear enough, I think, and anyone stumbling upon str_chop_lines may not realize the default is 4 without going to the function definition.

Answer 2

Split the string into an array using split(rex), where rex matches two consecutive newlines, and then concatenate the entire array, except for the first element (which is the header).

Answer 3

Strpos helps out a lot: Here's an example:

// $myString = "blah blah \n \n \n etc \n \n blah blah";

$len = strpos($myString, "\n\n"); 
$string = substr($myString, $len, strlen($myString) - $len);

$string then contains the string after finding those two newlines in a row.

Answer 4

$content = preg_replace("/^(.*\n){4}/", "", $content);