Breaks and spacing

Anon

I have a forum when I add a message to disregards all breaks and spacing that was put in the text box. EG:

line 1

line 3

Would show up like:

line 1 line 3

Also I can't space them like this:

object 1 object 2

that would show up like this:

object 1 object 2

I know it is because I am storing the text in a mysql Dbase with content type "text"
but I am sure there is a way in PHP to regain the breaks and spaces before or after it is in the dbase. I have seen it before please help.

Anon

Okay. Its really hard to tell what you're trying to do from your message but here goes... write two functions

first function converts all newline characters to <br> (HTML line break tags) and second function reconverts all <br> (HTML line break tags) back to newline characters for redisplay in the text box.

Such that when you ask for input from the textbox and separate the text by hitting carriage returns, the first function converts this into <BR >'s and this gets stored in the database such that your sql query would be something like

// $string has \n (newline) characters
$string = function1($string);

// $string now has <br> in place of \n (newlines)
$sql = "INSERT INTO tableName VALUES('$string');

now once you read this out back into the textbox (say for later revision)

your next function (function2) will reconvert all <br > tags into newlines again

while ($somerow = mysql_fetch_row($result_id)) {
// get $string which contains <br > tags
$string = $somerow[0];
$string = function2($string);
}

// later on in your html

you result should be properly formatted as if you had originally started

hope that helps

Anon

Although I don't redisplay it in a text box. I grab the data from a textbox into a variable then I just add it to a database to a feild thats content type is text. So I forgot that you need breaks stupid me. Well all I needed to remember is to add the <br> thanks.

Anon

Hey DB,

  Use nl2br() function to add the breaks in your string. It will convert newlines into breacks.

have fun
tabish

Anon

Thanks a lot tab. I was going to make a function myself or find some sort of way to convert them myself but it is nice having all those internal functions that do that work for you.