Aaron Gould wrote: > I have a series of paragraphs in which the first word contains > alternating spaces. How can I strip out the spaces of only this first > word, while leaving the remainder of the paragraph untouched? > > Here's an example: > > T h i s is the first paragraph. Only the first word is wacky. > > A n o t h e r paragraph with a wacky first word! Strange stuff... > > E n d l e s s insanity here! Untested code: <?php $text = ltrim($text); //Just in case a leading space gets in there... //Convert Mac/PC/Unix newlines: $text = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $text); $text = str_replace("\r", "\n", $text); $paragraphs = explode("\n", $text); $new_text = ''; while (list(, $paragraph) = each($paragraphs)){ for ($second_word_second_letter = 1; $second_word_second_letter < count($paragraph) && $paragraph[$second_word_second_letter] != ' '; $second_word_second_letter += 2){ //an empty body with no code on purpose. see above } $first_word_end = $second_word_second_letter - 2; $first_word_end = max(0, $first_word_end); $first_word = substr($text, 0, $first_word_end); $rest = substr($text, $first_word_end + 1); $first_word = str_replace(' ', '', $first_word); $new_text .= trim("$first_word $rest") . "\n"; } ?> I think I've avoided all the ways a blank paragraphs would get bogus results, but... -- Like Music? http://l-i-e.com/artists.htm -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php