Learning Php question

[keeper]

Hi all, I recently installed IIS 5.1 and PHP 5.2.6 on my Windows XP Pro laptop. I purchased Php 5 for dummies, and followed the install instructions.

I did a simple statement:

 

<?php echo "<p>This is a Php test line</p>"; ?>

 

named the file test.php, and viewed it with my browser by typing in

 

http://localhost/test.php

 

and it works fine. However, if I try to do a statement:

 

<?php echo "This \nis \na \nPhp \ntest \nline</p>"; ?>

 

It just shows the line (This is a Php test line), and does not do a next line using \n

Is this just a problem with my configuration? Using br works, but that's html, not Php right?

 

-Dave

[teng84]

<?php 
echo nl2br("This \nis \na \nPhp \ntest \nline</p>"); 
echo"This \nis \na \nPhp \ntest \nline</p>"; 
?>

[kratsg]

The \n only affects the display of the source code.

 

If you have firefox, open the page, view the source code behind it and you'll see the words broken up among different lines.

 

\n = new line
\t = tab

 

If you want to show LINE breaks in the html display, use <br>

[btherl]

Using br works, but that's html, not Php right?

 

PHP is not HTML, but PHP usually produces HTML.  When you use PHP through a webserver and produce an HTML document, you must use HTML tags.  PHP can be used from the command line too, or to produce text documents, CSV, Excel, etc etc, or to produce text inside pre tags and textareas, and that's where \n is useful.

[phpQuestioner]

to create html line breaks you need to do this:

 

<?php

echo "<p>This<br>is<br>a<br>Php<br>test<br>line</p>";

?>

 

otherwise if you use \n; as kratsg said earlier; you will only be creating line breaks in your source code and browsers do not interpret html source code carriage returns as actual html line breaks. .

 

if you view your source code; you will see that this:

 

<?php echo "This \nis \na \nPhp \ntest \nline</p>"; ?>

 

creates this:

 

This

is

a

Php

test

line

 

in your source code.

[revraz]

Should probably start using XHTML

<br />

[keeper]

I should have known. I didn't realize the diff from the examples shown in the book, and when I tried it. Got a bit of careful repeat reading to do before I continue...

 

Thanks very much.

-Dave

[br3nn4n]

As teng84 pointed out, using nl2br (a built in PHP function) will take your \n's and make them br's