php: remove excess <br> and tags from a string

Question

how can I remove excess <br> and &nbsp; tags from the start and end of a string?

Thanks :)

Answer 1

try this:

$str = preg_replace('{^(<br(\s*/)?>|&nbsp;)+}i', '', $str); //from start
$str = preg_replace('{(<br(\s*/)?>|&nbsp;)+$}i', '', $str); //from end

that also gets XHTML <br /> and <br/> forms