How many lines in a variable

PHP
1

Hi guys

Is there a way I can see how many liones are in a variable

Example

$names'chris
dave
fred';

How could I make this return

3

Thanks in advance

2

If you’re storing multiple items in a string like that, use an array.


$names = array("Chris", "Dave", "Fred");

echo count($names); // returns 3
3

Unfortunately it is a textarea where they enter 1 name per line

Is there a way i can get the amount of lines this way?

4

explode on "
". (Note: You must use double quotes.)

5

Try giving this a shot:


$_POST["Textarea"] = nl2br($_POST["Textarea"]);

$lines = explode("<br />", $_POST["Textarea"]);

echo count($lines);
6 
$var = "one
two
three";

// PHP_EOL = OS independent* means of indentifying an End Of Line 
$bits = explode( PHP_EOL, $var);
var_dump( $bits );
//or 
echo count($bits);
  • works on win32 at least …
7

Learn something new every day. PHP_EOL is a defined constant for all versions of PHP > 4.3 and 5.0.2 as part of the PHP Core.

8

The only potential problem with the above examples is that they will count empty lines as well - maybe that’s desired behaviour, I don’t know.

If you wanted to ignore all empty (or whitespace) lines you could do something like:


$names = '

chris

dave

fred

'; 


$namesArray = preg_split('#'.PHP_EOL.'#', $names, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

$numNames = count($namesArray);
9 
PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY

That’s so cool, I keep forgetting about that switch.