Using nl2br to add line breaks in textarea field

[trevb]

Hi all,

 

I would be very appreciative if I could solicit someone's help as it relates to the use of nl2br. Essentially, I'm trying to maintain line breaks when a user adds information to a textarea field. Now, this is fairly straight forward, but I've run into a few problems I'm sure someone here could fix up pretty quickly.

 

Below is how I;m currently using nl2br:

 

$row->custom1 = ampReplace( nl2br($row->custom1) );

$row->custom2 = ampReplace( nl2br($row->custom2) );

$row->custom3 = ampReplace( nl2br($row->custom3) );

 

Now this works ok, as it adds the required line breaks to the field. The problem occurs when a user makes additional changes to the form and resubmits it. Now it adds an additional line break to the form, so it now appears with two carriage returns. If he/she re-edits it, there would be three <br /> tags.

 

So my question is twofold:

 

1. How can I use nl2br (or some other method) to maintain line break within a text area field without displaying the <br /> tag when the form is re-edited?

2. How can I avoid multiple line breaks when the form is edited and re-submitted?

 

I apologize if this has been touched on before. I begin all posts by first searching previous posts, but I either did not find what I was looking for, or failed to understand what was being explained.

 

Thank you all in advance!

 

Trev B

[cooldude832]

the trick is dual storage (the same holds true with BB tags)  what you do is you carry across the raw data (in your case the $_POST data) as a variable apply your basic sanatizing to it except for nl2br then store a formatted version with nl2br and then you can have both i.e

<?php
$var = $_POST['textarea'];
$var_1 = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($var);
$var_2 = nl2br($var1);
//now you want to re  echo that text area so you do
echo "<textarea>".$var_1."</textarea>";
//But you want to show the formatted output farther down
echo "Formatted stuff:".$var_2;
?>

Makes sense, its easier than trying to reverse it after you nl2br it

[trevb]

the trick is dual storage (the same holds true with BB tags)  what you do is you carry across the raw data (in your case the $_POST data) as a variable apply your basic sanatizing to it except for nl2br then store a formatted version with nl2br and then you can have both i.e

<?php
$var = $_POST['textarea'];
$var_1 = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($var);
$var_2 = nl2br($var1);
//now you want to re  echo that text area so you do
echo "<textarea>".$var_1."</textarea>";
//But you want to show the formatted output farther down
echo "Formatted stuff:".$var_2;
?>

Makes sense, its easier than trying to reverse it after you nl2br it

 

Makes perfect sense. Let me give this a shot and if I have any problems I will let you know.

 

Thanks for taking the time to provide assistance!

 

Cheers!

 

Trev b