I have some paragraphs like this:

"This is the first para. r\r\n\n This is the second one with lot of new line after \n\n\n\n\n\n And the last para. \n\r\r"

I want to remove the new lines and wrap each paragraph with the <p> tag. I'm expecting output as follows:

<p>This is the first para.</p>
<p>This is the second one with lot of new line after</p>
<p>And the last para.</p>

I have some paragraphs like this:

"This is the first para. r\r\n\n This is the second one with lot of new line after \n\n\n\n\n\n And the last para. \n\r\r"

I want to remove the new lines and wrap each paragraph with the <p> tag. I'm expecting output as follows:

<p>This is the first para.</p>
<p>This is the second one with lot of new line after</p>
<p>And the last para.</p>

• javascript
• jquery
• regex

• is this actually what you need or only an example? I mean will there be more line breaks etc... Anything that breaks the line should be converted into <p> or </p> ? – Trufa Commented Feb 16, 2011 at 18:24
• it's an example, there could be more or less line breaks. Anything that looks like a paragraph will be converted into <p></p> – angry kiwi Commented Feb 16, 2011 at 18:25
• \r and other control characters are to be ignored in HTML. They are valid in strings (if escaped) – mozillanerd Commented Feb 16, 2011 at 20:56

4 Answers 4

var d = "line 1\n\nline2\n\n\n\nline3";
$('body').append('<p>'+d.replace(/[\r\n]+(?=[^\r\n])/g,'</p><p>')+'</p>');

something like this perhaps?

If you find the line contains any new lines/carriage returns at the beginning or end, remember to call a .trim() on the string first before replacing the values (using this example, d.trim().replace(...))

More robust solution

function p(t){
    t = t.trim();
    return (t.length>0?'<p>'+t.replace(/[\r\n]+/,'</p><p>')+'</p>':null);
}
document.write(p('this is a paragraph\r\nThis is another paragraph'));

PHP Version:

$d = "paragraph 1\r\nparagraph 2\r\n\r\n\r\nparagraph3";
echo "<p>".preg_replace('/[\r\n]+/','</p><p>',$d)."</p>";

http://www.ideone.com/1TRhh

How about this?

var output = $();

$.each("This is the first para. \r\n\n This is the second one with lot of new line after \n\n\n\n\n\n And the last para. \n\r\r".split(/[\n\r]+/g), function(i, el) {
    if (el) {
        output = output.add($('<p>' + el + '</p>'));
    }
});

This creates a jQuery selection containing the p elements.

you can try something like this:

function parse_it(yourstring, tagname){
   yourstring.replace(/[\r\n]+/g, '#x#');
   paragraphs = yourstring.split('#x#');

   pars = "";
   for(var i=0; i<paragraphs.length; i++)
      pars += '<'+tagname+'>'+paragraphs[i]+'</'+tagname+'>';

   return pars;
}

var parsedstring = parse_it("This is the first para. r\r\n\n This is the second one with lot of new line after \n\n\n\n\n\n And the last para. \n\r\r", 'p');

replace regex: /(?:[\r\n]*)(.+)(?:[\r\n]*)/
with: <p>$1</p>
context: global

In Perl its: s/ (?:[\r\n]*) (.+) (?:[\r\n]*) /<p>$1<\/p>/xg