Getting line breaks from a text area.

[Anon]

Hi,

I have a simple forum script which uses mySQL an PHP. When someone types in the message into the textarea all the line breaks disappear. Is there any way that I can tell when the line breaks occur and put <br> in their place?

TIA
RIch

[Anon]

My suggestion would be to insert the data into mysql like they type it, and when you display it use:

nl2br();

This will convert line breaks to <BR>

Derek

[Anon]

Thanks,

It worked a treat.

Rich

If at first you don't succeed ...
Bungee jumping probably isn't for you.

[Anon]

Hi can you please explain me where to give nl2br();

Thanks.

[Anon]

Suppose your text area name is "description" and your database field to store the information is called "item_desc".

You would probably save the info into your database with an assignment and sql:

$safe_desc = addslashes($description);
$sql = "INSERT INTO itemTable (item_desc) VALUES (' ".$safe_desc." ') ";
// execute sql for your DB

Now the info is in your database the same way they typed it into the text area. Now you want to display the info on a page:

// retrieve the information from you database
$sql = "select item_desc from itemTable where item_key = 'whatever' ";
// execute sql for your DB

// display it on a page
print nl2br($item_desc);

I left out the database specific code but you get the general idea.

-- Rich Rijnders
-- Irvine, CA US

[Anon]

i will try according to your method.
Thanks for your help.

[Anon]

I used a simple ereg_replace and replaced \n by <br>

works aswell.