Replace new line or enter key with break tag

Mechaworx

Hi All,

Hope that makes sense. I have a comment form where users can submit comments to a web site. But I got to thinking, if the user wants to write a multiple paragraph comment and not have to worry about entering html code to separate paragraphs, is there a way in php of adding break tags when the users enters a new line? I'm sure there is cuz, this form that I'm typing now will probably do it.

Please just don't say yes it's possible, if I can be pointed in the right direction to get started, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

bradgrafelman

Personally, I would store the data (if applicable, e.g. in a database) exactly as the user entered it - line breaks and all.

When displaying the data, however, if you're outputting it into an HTML document, look into using [man]nl2br/man to transform line breaks into the BR entity.

Mechaworx

Thanks Bradgrafelman,

Yes, all user comments are stored in a database just as the user types them.
It took me a bit to figure it out because I'm using concatenation to build the html output.

I ended up with the below code and was wondering if this was the best way to do this.

$displayComments .= 
		'<div class="post" style="background-color:'.$row_color.'">
			<p><b>Posted By</b>: <span>'.$name.'</span> | <b>On</b>: '.$cmtDate.' | <b>Website</b>: '.$website.'</p>
			<p>'.nl2br($comment).'</p></div>';

I'm thinking I can probably do something within the while loop instead of the above? My other problem is figuring out how to get xhtml line breaks.

Thanks for your help.

bradgrafelman

Mechaworx wrote:
My other problem is figuring out how to get xhtml line breaks.

Did you look at the second parameter for [man]nl2br/man ?

Mechaworx

Sorry for the late reply Bradgrafelman,

My computer got a worm so I was out of commission for a couple of days. I did read the manual regarding the second parameter and If I'm reading it right it states that the default nl2br() function should return xhtml compliant line breaks <br />.