Remove first instance of substring if its infront of string

Question

I have 2 types of strings:

String 1

<br/>Ask Me A Question<br />

                  |<br/>Search My Apartments<br/>

String 2

Ask Me A Question<br />

                  |<br/>Search My Apartments<br/>

How do I have a function that remove the first <br/> from the String 1 to get String 2, while not touching anything in String 2 if String 2 is passed into the function?

Evan Davis · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 20:58:13Z

1

start your regex with ^ to match the beginning of the string.

preg_replace('/^<br\s?\/>/', '', $string)

EDIT: whoops, had an extra space (\s) in there!

EDIT 2: added an optional space back in!

edited Dec 20, 2011 at 20:58

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:37

Evan Davis

36.7k7 gold badges53 silver badges58 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

6 Comments

user895378 Over a year ago

Thanks for the props ... though I'm with you: When you're dealing with HTML you never know how it's going to look so you're often better off with a regex that allows for all the possibilities. Of course, DOM parsing is also your friend in such matters :)

JoshStrange Over a year ago

Your regex does not work for the example given in the question

user895378 Over a year ago

It's worth noting that the space character should be optional \s?

JoshStrange Over a year ago

Notice the "\s" there is no space in the example so it doesn't match. @mathletics fixed it and it works now

Evan Davis Over a year ago

@JoshStrange rdlowrey is right, considering that it's mixed in this example (I realize the first has no space but if dealing with input from, say, a CMS, who knows how it's actually going to shake out.)

|

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-21 15:10:29Z

0

If you want to avoid using a regular expression you can check if <br/> occurs at the start of the string with strpos(). If so, simply lop off the first five characters using substr()

if (strpos($string, '<br/>') === 0) {
  $string = substr($string, 5);
}

edited Nov 21, 2023 at 15:10

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:38

user895378

3 Comments

Evan Davis Over a year ago

Ha! Good answer. Sometimes you don't need regex!

Tim Over a year ago

Make sure you use the triple-equals (===) in case your version of php's strpos returns false (which will match 0 but won't === 0)

user895378 Over a year ago

@Tim Yes, it's probably worth pointing that out. IF you're asking such a question you probably aren't fully aware of the difference between double equals and triple equals.

fge · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 20:39:49Z

0

Replace `^<br/> with the empty string.

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:39

fge

122k35 gold badges266 silver badges340 bronze badges

Comments

JoshStrange · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 20:44:01Z

0

@mathletics Answer is not correct for the example given in the question, This one works:

preg_replace('#^(<br/>)#iu', '', $string);

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:44

JoshStrange

1,1291 gold badge8 silver badges23 bronze badges

1 Comment

Evan Davis Over a year ago

fixed mine; had an extra space character because I looked at the second break.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Remove first instance of substring if its infront of string

4 Answers 4

6 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

6 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related