new line problem

[vener]

there is a newline character \n in the variable, how do i print it without php making a newline? thanks

[dagon]

not sure what you means there's no visual representation of a new line, perhaps you want to convert it to something else, if so use str_replace() or get the html of <br> then use nl2br(); otherwise let us know what your after.

[vener]

ok here is what i am doing.
I got a variable $X

$X = stuff \n stuff;
echo $X

so it will display

stuff
stuff

but I want it like so

stuff \n stuff

[coldwerturkey]

\n

[vener]

Hey thanks, it works

[dagon]

addslashes()

[bradgrafelman]

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.

And just to elaborate, in case it wasn't clear, there are two options you have:

$var = "stuff \\n stuff";
// OR
$var = 'stuff \n stuff';

The first method uses a double-quote delimited string, so PHP tries to interpret special escape sequences (e.g. \n => carriage return character). The extra backslash preceding the backslash means PHP that you want it to ignore the backslash's special properties and just print a literal '\' character.

The second method doesn't require such escaping because PHP doesn't parse these special backslash sequences (or perform variable interpolation) in single-quote delimited strings.