Adding line breaks

[Eiolon]

I have people entering data in a text field and they use line breaks for paragraphs.  Unfortunately, when I call the data up from the database it is all run together.  Is there a way to make it so the line breaks stay?

[utexas_pjm]

When you say line breaks do you mean \n?  And when you say "call data up from the database" do you mean in a web browser?  If so, you're in luck http://php.net/nl2br ;).

[monkey_05_06]

[code]<?php
$text = (get_magic_quotes_gpc() ? stripslashes($_POST["text"]) : $_POST["text"]);
$text = mysql_real_escape_string(nl2br($text));
?>[/code]

stripslashes and mysql_real_escape_string are there to prevent malicious input. nl2br is the function you needed. It converts new-line characters (\n) to HTML line-breaks (< br />).

[b][EDIT:][/b]

utexas_pjm posted before me...but...same answer.

[Michan]

I was just working on this exact function. Here's my take.

When you actually post the item to the database/email/page/wherever, use the following code:

[code]$string = str_replace("\n", "<br>", $string);[/code]

Replace $string with the name of the text area.

[Eiolon]

Thank you all.  This appears to be what I am looking for.

[monkey_05_06]

Michan that's precisely what PHP's built-in nl2br function does. But good thinking!

Just FYI though HTML now requires (for the standard though most browsers will accept the old method) all tags that don't have a closing tag, i.e., < br />, < hr />, < img />, etc., to end with "/>" instead of just ">". That signifies the closing of these single-tag tags. ;)

[boby]

If you really want to use [b]str_replace[/b] then I suggest you replace also [b]\r[/b] and [b]\r\n[/b].
[code=PHP]$string = str_replace (array ("\r\n", "\n", "\r"), "<br />", $string);[/code]

[b]nl2br[/b] will take care of all three ways.

[b]\n[/b] = *Nix
[b]\r[/b] = Windows
[b]\r\n[/b] = Mac