Hi there!

I am having some problems replacing strings using PHP. I have a MySQL table from where I fetch data. For new lines, I use \n in the MySQL table and when outputting this data, I would like to convert \n to <br />. This is what I use:



The function is called using:



The above doesn't seem to work. The data which the function throws out is the same as the data passed. Do I have to escape some characters or someting?

Regards,
Sebastian

Nevermind... I found a better method:

There is a function called nl2br() which changes newlines into <b>.

The best thing to do is format $stuff before it goes into the database. For example, you could do the following:

$stuff2 = nl2br($stuff);

Then in your INSERT query, replace $stuff with $stuff2.

http://ca.php.net/nl2br

Hope this helps

Also, if you want to convert thigns like < into the letter formation (I have it in my head but I just cant grasp it) you could use htmlspecialchars, which does that for you.

http://ca.php.net/htmlspecialchars

That is by no means a better method.

Try this:

htmlentities works, but not the new line conversion. As I said, the MySQL table has strings like "Hello\nWorld". When fetching the data, I want "\n" to be converted to "<br />" before it gets displayed in the user's browser.

Thats what nl2br is supposed to do. If its not workign you could always just go str_replace("\n", '<br />', $str);

Done that, too, but for some strange reason, it doesn't work.

Hold on, the database actually displays the \n? Why? It shouldn't do, your content should just go on the next line. \n is one of the 'hidden' characters.

Anyway, if the \n is actually shown in the database and you don't want to change it then use:

str_replace('\n', "<br />", $str);

The single quotes around the \n are important.

Placing single quotes around both \n and <br /> helped. Thanks Rikki.
About the \n in the table... I entered the data using the SQL Query Browser and didn't find a way how to insert a new line, so I wrote everything as one line and used \n in the place where I wanted a new line to begin.

OK well that isn't a good way of doing it. If you want to do it like that then you might as well just put the <br /> in the database.

yes by entering \n by hand PHP "sees" the character \ and the character n instead of the character \n (\n is a single character, as there is no human readable form (the first 31 ASCII characters are called 'control characters' and none of them are human readable characters) for it that is how PHP displays it)

http://www.lookuptables.com/

OK, I changed the "\n" to a real \n and nl2br() works. One question, though... Is it possible to suppress the new line character and only substitute it by "<br />"? The reason is that I am using indentation in my HTML and when a table entry contains a new line, the code-flow is screwed:



What I would like is:

Actually, that's a bad practice. Through testing and debugging, I found out that nl2br() does not remove/convert the newline character, it only places an HTML newline AFTER the C-style newline character. What's this mean? If you store that in the database, you've got a LOT of extra junk in there that's not needed. Store it in the database as a newline, and use str_replace().

Sebastian, this should help solve your flow problem too. Except...since you've already implemented it, you'll have to make sure to query your database to remove all the <br>'s.

I prefer to have a real line-break after an HTML one because it is a lot cleaner and results in nicer markup.

If you had've visited the PHP.net documentation on nl2br(), you would have found this out WITHOUT having to do "testing and debugging", the <br /> gets added before the new line too.

http://uk.php.net/nl2br

At the time, I was learning from a book that was purchased for a class. I've since gone way beyond that level.

flightmike1, you'd still be better off saving it as a standard newline in the database, and then using nl2br() on the retrieved content. People that use TABs or spaces to indent their HTML code don't like the newline because it breaks their flow. But I do understand where you're coming from.

If you really want tabs in your html you could also use \t which is the tab character.
Alot of servers also see both \r and \n type newlines, be careful which you use, and on what kind of a server you're working
It can be a real pain.

You could just use CR, LF or CRLF - depending on the OS - in the database...

/r = carriage return
/n = newline

.../n will also sometimes be both newline+carriage return, depending on the OS