Script to remove whitespace and list items - php

Question

I'm trying to create a script which would take an input of formatted text (more specifically a copy and pasted list from a word document, likely bullet pointed or numbered) in a text-box input.
After looking into this I have tried using str_replace and preg_replace but im struggling to get the correct pattern to do what i want here. I'm also unsure on what I can use to 'target' the tabbed space in my pattern. I've tried various ASCII codes with no success (e.g )
Apologies accidentally hit enter while adding tags
Examples of pre-script data:
1. Text
2. Text
3. Text
4. Text
While it doesn't show clearly here, there is a large tabbed space between the numbering and text when pasting.
Post-script:
Text
Text
Text
Text

Answer 1

<?php
$output_space = "";
$output_tab = "";
if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
$lines = explode('<br />', nl2br($_POST['input']));
foreach($lines as $line){
$tbl_space = explode(" ", $line);
$tbl_tab = explode("\t", $line);
array_shift($tbl_space); // remove first element of the array (everything before the first tab)
array_shift($tbl_tab);
$output_space .= trim(implode(" ", $tbl_space))."\r\n";
$output_tab .= trim(implode("\t", $tbl_tab))."\r\n";
}
}
?>
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post" id="deformat">
Formatted data <textarea rows="4" cols="50" name="input" form="deformat" placeholder="pasted formatted text here">
</textarea>
Deformatted data (spaces) <textarea rows="4" cols="50" name="output" form="deformat"><?=$output_space?>
</textarea>
Deformatted data (tab)<textarea rows="4" cols="50" name="output" form="deformat"><?=$output_tab?>
</textarea>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Clean my data!">
</form>

Answer 2

Assuming you're pasting the content in a TextArea and submitting it, you may well lose the correct tabulation in doing so, so instead use the bullets. My PHP is somewhat rusty, so check the code before you use it, but something along the lines of this will work.
$text = htmlspecialchars($_POST['myFormElement']);
$lines = explode(PHP_EOL, $text);
$bullets = array();
foreach ($lines as $line)
{
preg_match("/([^\s]+)\s+(\w*)/", $line,$captured);
if (count($captured) > 1 ) {
if (strcmp($captured[1], end($bullets))) {
if (count($bullets) > 1 && !strcmp($bullets[count($bullets)-2],$captured[1])) {
echo '</ul>';
array_pop($bullets);
} else {
echo '<ul>';
array_push($bullets, $captured[1]);
}
}
echo "<li>$captured[2]</li>";
}
}
while (count($bullets)) {
echo "</ul>";
array_pop($bullets);
}

Answer 3

Use something like this:
$arSingleLine = explode(PHP_EOL, $yourPostString);
$arRet = array();
foreach ($arSingleLine as $sSingle)
{
$arRet[] = preg_replace('/^.+\s+/', '', $sSingle);
}
// $arRet holds now every single fixed line...
Maybe PHP_EOL does not match your client line ending. For splitting every line ending from a single line of code just use preg_split and the line endings \n \r and \r\n for UNIX, OS X and Windows line breaks.