Formatting text from database

[Anon]

I have a form that goes into a mysql database. The datatype of this particular field in the database is a text field.

The problem is, when people write their paragraphs on the form and submit it. When I try to output it again, it loses all of it's formatting that it originally had.

Is there anyway to get this back or store it in a better format?

Thanks,
M

[Anon]

Well, when the browser submits a textfield it uses newlines (\n) to designate a new line... PHP however, since you need to output it as HTML, needs to use <br> HTML tags... SO... What you can do is before entering the data into the database is use this command:

$form_textbox = str_replace("\n","<br>\n",$form_textbox);

and, of course, replacing $form_textbox for the variable your text is in...

Hope this helps 🙂

[mohamed42]

Don't forget addslashes() and stripslashes().

[Anon]

Another solution:

$form_text = nl2br($form_text);