php function preg_replace with regex not working, a syntax question

Question

im trying to replace a remove unnessary new lines with preg-replace but my regex is incorrect. Anyone any ideas whats wrong with my regex? (i have Apache/2.0.54 & PHP/5.2.9

NOW HAVE:

{
blaa {
blow;
blue};
bell;}
}ball

WOULD LIKE:

{blaa {blow;blue};bell;}}ball

These regex dont work, they remove too much or toolitle??

$buffer = preg_replace('#/\}\n|\r|\s/#s', '}', $buffer);
$buffer = preg_replace('#/\{\n|\r|\s/#s', '{', $buffer);
$buffer = preg_replace('#/\;\n|\r|\s/#s', ';', $buffer);

/g (global) gives blanc content and without the # it doestnt do anything. strange?! Anybody any clue why these dont work?

Answer 1

If you want to remove any whitespace after {, }, and ;, do this:

preg_replace('/([{};])\s+/', '$1', $buffer)

Here / are the delimiters; ([{};]) describes one character of {, }, and ; while the match is captured; and \s+ describes any following whitespace characters (already including \r and \n).

Answer 2

This works for me:

$buffer = preg_replace('/\}\\n|\\r|\\s/', '', $buffer);

Answer 3

$buffer = preg_replace('#([{};])(?:\n|\r|\s)#s', '$1', $buffer);