I have to output text from a db to a web browser. The text gets input by anyone and his dog, so the rules for what they can do are simple:
(1) they can enter line breaks, which will be translated into <BR> tags;
(2) they can precede one or more successive lines with a '-' or a '·' and those lines will be formatted in HTML as a bulleted list.

All tags they try to enter get stripped out, and any other formatting they attempt is ignored.

So I have to come up with a way to do the above simple formatting to any block of text. I have done this. BUT it looks way clunky to me. I wd love to crib your code if you felt like sharing a sharper way to do it; and I am sure I would learn a lot by seeing how somebody better than I am does this.

Here's my version: 
$text =~ s/\n|^/<br>/gs;
$text =~ s/<br>\s*[-·]/<ul><li> /gs;
$text =~ s/<ul><li>([^<]*)<ul>/<ul><li>$1/gs;
$text =~ s/<li>([^<]*)(<br>\n*\s*)+/<li>$1<\/ul>/gs;

[download]
I'd be very grateful for any suggestions how to improve this.

§ George Sherston

In reply to Regex Titans? - format plaintext to HTML by George_Sherston

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