how to split the text into lines?

sherif

Hi,
I am trying to write a guest book application. I give the user a free text box to write his comments on. Then I insert that text into a column defined as "TEXT" in a database. The problem is that all the user's input text is stored as a one line in the table and when I display it , the layout is different. For example if the user enters

line one blaaa.
line two
(blank line)
line three.

I get it stored as
"line one blaaa. line two line three."
How can I go around this and at least display it as the user entered it?
please help.
thanks in advance

amcgrath

Are you asking about the nl2br() function?

sherif

I don't know if it could help or not? How can I use it in the guest book form, particularly with the "text variable"?

amcgrath

what i mean is when you display it, try nl2br($test)....

sherif

Thanks man, I tried it and it did work. It even saved it in the database with the <br>s 🙂

hometoast

also of use, if there are no newlines in the text is chunk_split().

amcgrath

I wouldn't advise saving it in the database with the <BR>'s since it is a formatting tag and you may not always want it.

amcgrath

good point.

sherif

If I don't save it with the <br>'s , how will I display it again with the same layout as the user entered it? (for example when someone clicks on VIEW GUESTBOOK some other day)

amcgrath

When you go to display it, use nl2br($var)...

sherif

thanks alot... 🙂