How to convert multiple tag to a single tag in php

Question

Wanted to convert

into

Answer 1

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 2

A fast, non regular-expression approach:

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

Answer 3

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 4

User may enter many variants

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

...and more.

So I think it will be better next

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

Answer 5

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 6

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

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