$re = '/^(?<!(?<!\A)\G)\s*$/m';
$str = '
Here is some text.
After several lines of whitespace, here is some more text.';
$subst = "<line break>";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php