3v4l.org

run code in 300+ PHP versions simultaneously
<?php $re = '/[\t\n]+(?=[^][]*(?:(\[(?:[^][]++|(?1))*])[^][]*)*])/'; $str = "settings:a [\n a:[\n a:a\n b:b\n ]\n b:[\n a:a\n b:b\n ]\n]\n\nsettings:b [\n a:[\n \n\na:a\n b:b\n ]\n]"; echo preg_replace($re, ' ', $str);
Output for 7.3.0 - 7.3.33, 7.4.0 - 7.4.33, 8.0.0 - 8.0.30, 8.1.0 - 8.1.33, 8.2.0 - 8.2.29, 8.3.0 - 8.3.26, 8.4.1 - 8.4.13
settings:a [ a:[ a:a b:b ] b:[ a:a b:b ] ] settings:b [ a:[ a:a b:b ] ]

preferences:
138.36 ms | 407 KiB | 5 Q