nl2br?

[RaythMistwalker]

<?php echo nl2br($PostText); ?>

 

In this instance $PostText is:

Welcome to your new forum./n/n This is a default post to show you everything is set up.

 

But it isn't changing the /n to <br>. The database is a varchar(10000) for this required column.

[The Little Guy]

because it is \n not /n

 

also \n is a string, so that wont be converted.

[RaythMistwalker]

Ok So how do i get it to work?

[ZulfadlyAshBurn]

why not use str_replace?

[The Little Guy]

why not use str_replace?

 

Because that makes for bad database data.

 

I don't know how your inserting your values, php? phpMyAdmin? Other?

[ManiacDan]

Ok there's a couple things here...

 

1)  /n is not a special character.  If you have something that's giving you /n instead of an actual newline (\n), you need to fix that.

 

2)  If you already have a lot of /n characters in your database, write a script to str_replace /n for \n

 

3)  Once you fix 1 and perform 2, nl2br will begin working.

 

-Dan

[RaythMistwalker]

Ok there's a couple things here...

 

1)  /n is not a special character.  If you have something that's giving you /n instead of an actual newline (\n), you need to fix that.

 

2)  If you already have a lot of /n characters in your database, write a script to str_replace /n for \n

 

3)  Once you fix 1 and perform 2, nl2br will begin working.

 

-Dan

 

Ok il answer in order..

1) That was a mistake by me. I went to the single post that had /n and changed to \n

 

2 ^

 

3) It still doesn't work :/ I can link to the thread if that would help.

[Pikachu2000]

What does "it doesn't work" mean, exactly? Show all of the relevant code where you're trying to echo the data, and an actual sample of the data.

[RaythMistwalker]

Query & Setting $PostText

      $PostQuery = "SELECT * FROM ".FORUM_POSTS." WHERE post_id='{$PostID}'";
      $PostRes = mysql_query($PostQuery, $db);
      $PostText = mysql_result($PostRes, 0, 'post_text');

 

This query works fine and gets all the data perfectly fine.

 

This part shows the text:

<td class="row2" valign="top">
            <br><?php echo nl2br($PostText); ?><br>
        </td>

 

What it returns:

Welcome to your new forum.\n\n This is a default post to show you everything is set up.

 

An example page is Here

[The Little Guy]

when you look in the database do you see \n or a newline?

 

if you see \n, that than is your problem. don't save it in the database as \n, save it as a newline.

[Pikachu2000]

Is there anything else between where the data is retrieved and where it's echoed? Something, somewhere has to be changing the \n newlines into string literal 'backslash n's. How is the data inserted into the database field to begin with?

[RaythMistwalker]

It's saved as \n in the database. As I said in a previous post I am using varchar(10000) so how would I set it as new line?

[ManiacDan]

You are seeing the string \n.  The string \n is not a newline, it's the string \n.  That's the problem.  The Little Guy just said it up there but I wanted to make it clear:

 

$a = "\n";  //$a is now a NEWLINE

$a = '\n';  //$a is now THE STRING \n

 

You have the string \n scattered throughout your entries.  You need to do my #2 above and replace the string \n with the newline character, commonly represented in interpolated strings as \n.

 

Yes, it's confusing.  Welcome to computer science.

 

-Dan

[RaythMistwalker]

How do I actually do the newling rather than having string? I'm getting a bit confused. It's only 1 entry that requires to be changed since I only have 1 entry atm.

[Psycho]

I assume you are entering the data via PHPMyAdmin. If so, you cannot enter a line break into the input field if you use the Insert Record form. Change the field type to "TEXT" instead of VARCHAR and you should be able to enter line breaks

[Pikachu2000]

You are seeing the string \n.  The string \n is not a newline, it's the string \n.  That's the problem.  The Little Guy just said it up there but I wanted to make it clear:

 

$a = "\n";  //$a is now a NEWLINE

$a = '\n';  //$a is now THE STRING \n

 

You have the string \n scattered throughout your entries.  You need to do my #2 above and replace the string \n with the newline character, commonly represented in interpolated strings as \n.

 

Yes, it's confusing.  Welcome to computer science.

 

-Dan

 

That's what I thought until I just did the following:

 

$str = 'new\nline'; // should be a string literal
$query = 'INSERT INTO table (field) VALUES (\'' . $str . '\')';
$result = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);

$query = "SELECT field FROM table";
$result = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);
$array = mysqli_fetch_row($result);

echo $array[0];
echo '
<br><br>
';
echo $nl2br($array[0]);

 

The above generates this source:

[pre]

new

line

<br><br>

new<br />

line

[/pre]

[RaythMistwalker]

TY for everyones help. Changing it to text then entering the new line worked.