Php Split text from html text area - php

Question

I am trying to split a string that i pass from a HTML textarea.
Enter the list of Ids: <textarea rows="4" cols="50" name="ids">
I get it in a php script as
$idlist=$_GET["ids"];
When I try to split it, I couldnt get it with explode. Tried out with multiple delimitiers that could possibly split this and then tried using preg_split. I gave this as my regex.
$ids=preg_split("/\s/",$idlist);
Now that i split, I get empty array elements in the $ids. And I couldnt match them like
$ids[$i]==""|" "|"\s"
1) How will the text in text area be passed? I am giving one Id per line in the text area. It doesnt not carry new line character but a single space.
2) Will preg_split split out even the delimitiers that one uses to split the string?
I know I am making a blunder but couldnt figure out where. Someone any thoughts?

Answer 1

If each ID is on a new line, you need to explode by the new line character \n...
$ids=preg_split("/\r|\n)*/", $idlist);
EDIT: Updated to support windows encoding due to it being sent as a GET not a POST..
Explanation:
Windows send new lines as \r\n so if it is a GET the you need to provide support for this...

Answer 2

Here you go - just using explode to break them down into an array based on the "\n" new line character. I know you mentioned this does not work, but tested it and it works fine for me:
<?php
if (isset($_GET['ids'])) {
$arrayOfIds = explode("\n", $_GET['ids']);
}
?>
<form method="get" action="">
<textarea name="ids"></textarea>
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
As you mentioned above, when typing ID's into the textarea field I just put them each on a new line.

Answer 3

Figured it out. There was a single space as well as a New line character in the string. Exploded it with \n and then trimmed it with trim() that solved the problem.

Answer 4

With a textarea you have to assume the user is stupid when you ask them to provide data. If you say "Provide an id on each line" assume they will not read it and use commas or assume they press ENTER 50 times at the end, or assume they pasted it in from MS Word. No offense to the user, but just assume they are a Jelly fish on a keyboard and at some point it manages to click "submit".
Taking that into account, (and I'm assuming here that your ids are numbers) it means that anything that isn't a number can be ignored. This makes worrying about new lines, be that \n\r or whatever, completely irrelevant as long as there is some kind of character between each id then that's all we need.
I'm going to change $_GET["ids"] to $_POST["ids"] because I'd be posting that sort of data.
// This will create a list of ids with NO care about what delimeter
// the user used regardless of what you'd requested.
// Replace all non-numeric characters with #
$ids = preg_replace("/[^0-9]/is","#",$_GET["POST"]);
// Remove recursive # and trim
$ids = preg_replace("/#{1,}/is","#",trim($ids,"#"));
// Create array ensuring ids isn't empty
// This also removes unique id entries
$ids = empty($ids)?array():array_unique(explode("#",$ids));
// Show array
echo "<pre>";
print_r($ids);
echo "</pre>";