How to use nl2br to remove \n and add breaks - php

I'm having some trouble getting nl2br to do what I want.
Can someone explain why nl2br doesn't change the \n in the JSON data to < br /> in my PHP?
Here is the code:
$page = file_get_contents('JSON_FEED_URL');
$page2 = nl2br($page);
When I echo $page2 and view the HTML page it comes out as a big wall of text.

Try
$page = file_get_contents('JSON_FEED_URL');
$page2 = preg_replace("/\\n/m", "<br />", $page);
As said, str_replace would also work a tad faster, but the above counts of multiline breaks.

nl2br does not replace the new lines, only ads the <br> tags. In HTML there is no need to remove the new line characters as they are considered to be white space which is collapsed to a single space for display. This fact is the very reason for having the <br> tag.

Since you say that you can see the \ns when echoing (instead of a newline in the source), this probably means that your \ns are literal, and not "proper" newlines. This is because your JSON is read as a string. Fix this by calling json_decode();
$page2 = nl2br(json_decode($page));
Explanation:
The string
line1
line2
is in JSON saved as
"line1\nline2"
but that \n is not a real newline, just normal characters. By decoding the JSON, it will be correct.

nl2br did not interpret \n to <br /> in HTML because they were literal slashes followed by n.
On your source, the text looks like the following:
FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY.\n\nMORE RAIN IS
Should be something similar to the ff so that it'll be interpreted:
FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY.
MORE RAIN IS
You can address your problem by using str_replace() or if you can update your code when putting content on "JSON_FEED_URL", add nl2br before putting those content.

Related

escape sequences are not working in php

if im not wrong \n representation means that a newline as <br> .But when i use <br> or another tags they work properly but escape sequences.
example
echo "write somethings<br>";
echo "about coding";
above example works fine but when i try to use escape sequences none of them are not working
echo "write something\n";
echo "about coding";
it's just an example for newline character and the other escaping characters dont work as \n.What is the real logic on this case?
\n and other similar escape sequences are not part of HTML. You should use HTML escape sequences. These can be found here: http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/entity-escape-characters.php
So only your <br> tag works but \n is not
No, this is an example of HTML rules.
Putting \n in a PHP string and then outputting it as HTML will put a new line character in the HTML source code. It's just line pressing return when writing raw HTML.
HTML puts no special meaning on the new line character (at least outside of script elements and elements with various non-default values of the CSS white-space property) and treats it like any other white space character.
<br>, on the other hand, is a line break element (but usually an indication that you should be using a block level element around the content instead).
HTML ignores carriage return and linefeed characters, treating them as whitespace. If you want to use display a string formatted with "\n" you can use nl2br to convert it, e.g.
echo nl2br("this is on\ntwo lines");
If you look at this in the browser it wont work : browser knows only HTML for display (<br>) but not escape like \n or \r

remove \n from paragraph

I have a jquery editable div that when you click on it you can edit the text. The problem is that when the data is called from the db and placed into the paragraph I keep getting a \n for every space. How can I replace the \n with an actual new line.
I tried nl2br(), but that's not very convenient for my users since they then have to play with the <br /> when they want to edit the paragraph.
Any thoughts?
What about:
str_replace("\\n", "", $str); // see if this gets rid of them
Then this should work to put actual newlines in there:
str_replace("\\n", "\n", $str); // should replace with actual newline
try:-
$strippedText = str_replace(chr(10), '', $textFromDB);
or
$strippedText = str_replace(chr(10), '<br/>', $textFromDB);
Does this work? (Working on the possiblity that the newlines are already escaped).
$strippedText = str_replace('\\n', ' ', $textFromDB);
Are you using a ready made solution or making your own? I use http://aloha-editor.org/ for stuff like this and it's mostly problem free.
Have you tried str_replace?
$myTextFromDB = str_replace('\n', PHP_EOL, $myTextFromDB);
Ok, I think this is different enough that I should do a separate answer for it.
Are you saying a literal "slash n" shows up on the page? Or are you saying that your newlines show up as spaces?
If it's the latter, then there's no way around that. HTML will show newlines only as a space - you have to convert to br tags to break the line if it's not in a textarea context. But you can always convert them back to newlines when you pop that textarea up for your user and this should work well for people.

Why LineBreak shown "n" in php?

I need help! Please, I use message form like facebook and twitter, new message slidedown effect. I used line break but shown "n" in new message. When refresh browser, Line break not shown "n". Sorry for my English used. :D
If you are using \n to put line break you have to enclose it in "
"Text \n this is on new line"
Have in mind that for HTML output you have to use <br />
Assuming that you're displaying messages which contain newlines (\n) and you want to display these in HTML output, keeping the newlines, then you should use nl2br to convert the newlines to HTML line break (BR) tags.
In PHP you can print line-break with the PHP_EOL constant without use /n
example:
$string = "First Line".PHP_EOL."Second Line";
echo $string
the output is:
First Line
Second Line
Try either \r\n or <br/>.
Cheers

PHP Linefeeds (\n) Not Working

For some reason I can't use \n to create a linefeed when outputting to a file with PHP. It just writes "\n" to the file. I've tried using "\\n" as well, where it just writes "\n" (as expected). But I can't for the life of me figure out why adding \n to my strings isn't creating new lines. I've also tried \r\n but it just appends "\r\n" to the line in the file.
Example:
error_log('test\n', 3, 'error.log');
error_log('test2\n', 3, 'error.log');
Outputs:
test\ntest2\n
Using MAMP on OSX in case that matters (some sort of PHP config thing maybe?).
Any suggestions?
Use double quotes. "test\n" will work just fine (Or, use 'test' . PHP_EOL).
If the string is enclosed in double-quotes ("), PHP will interpret more escape sequences for special characters:
http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php
\n is not meant to be seen as a new line by the end user, you must use the html <br/> element for that.
/n only affects how the html that is generated by php appears in the source code of the web page. if you go to your web page and click on 'view source' you will see php-generated html as one long line. Not pretty. That's what \n is for ; to break that php-generated html into shorter lines. The purpose of \n is to make a prettier 'view source' page.
When you run a PHP script in a browser, it will be rendered as HTML by default. If the books you’re using show otherwise, then either the code or the illustration is inaccurate. You can use “view source” to view what was sent to the browser and you’ll see that your line feeds are present.
<?php
echo "Line 1\nLine 2";
?>
This will render in your browser as:
Line 1 Line 2
If you need to send plain text to your browser, you can use something like:
<?php
header('Content-type: text/plain');
echo "Line 1\nLine 2";
?>
This will output:
Line 1
Line 2
nl2br() function use for create new line
echo nl2br("Welcome\r\n This is my HTML document", false);
The above example will output:
Welcome
This is my HTML document
I'm pretty sure you are outputting to a html file.
The problem is html ignores newlines in source which means you have to replace the newlines with <br/> if you want a newline in the resulting page display.
You need to use double quotes. Double quotes have more escape chars.
error_log("test\n", 3, 'error.log');
error_log("test2\n", 3, 'error.log');
to place the \n in double quotes try
$LOG = str_replace('\n', "\n", $LOG);
It's because you use apostrophes ('). Use quotationmarks (") instead. ' prompts PHP to use whatever is in between the apostrophes literally.
Double quotes are what you want. Single quotes ignore the \ escape. Double quotes will also evaluate variable expressions for you.
Check this page in the php manual for more.
The “\n” or “\r” or similar tags are treated as white-space in HTML and browsers. You can use the "pre" tag to solve that issue
<?php
echo "<pre>";
echo "line1 \n some text \t a tab \r some other content";
echo "</pre>";
?>
If you want to print something like this with a newline (\n) after it:
<p id = "theyateme">Did it get eaten?</p>
To print the above, you should do this:
<?php
print('<p id = "theyateme">Did it get eaten?</p>' . "\n");
?>
The client code from above would be:
<p id = "theyateme">Did it get eaten?</p>
The output from above would be:
Did it get eaten?
I know it's hard, but I always do it that way, and you almost always have to do it that way.
Sometimes you want PHP to print \n to the page instead of giving a newline, like in JavaScript code (generated by PHP).
NOTE about answer: You might be like: Why did you use print instead of echo (I like my echo). That is because I prefer print over echo and printf, because it works better in some cases (my cases usually), but it can be done fine with echo in this case.

PHP, why sometimes "\n or \r" works but sometimes doesnt?

Well, I am abit confuse using these \r,\n,\t etc things. Because I read online (php.net), it seems like works, but i try it, here is my simple code:
<?php
$str = "My name is jingle \n\r";
$str2 = "I am a boy";
echo $str . $str2;
?>
But the outcome is "My name is jingle I am a boy"
Either I put the \r\n in the var or in the same line as echo, the outcome is the same. Anyone knows why?
Because you are outputting to a browser, you need to use a <br /> instead, otherwise wrap your output in <pre> tags.
Try:
<?php
$str = "My name is jingle <br />";
$str2 = "I am a boy";
echo $str . $str2;
?>
Or:
<?php
$str = "My name is jingle \n\r";
$str2 = "I am a boy";
echo '<pre>' .$str . $str2 . '</pre>';
?>
Browsers will not <pre>serve non-HTML formatting unless made explicit using <pre> - they are interested only in HTML.
Well in your example you've got \n\r rather than \r\n - that's rarely a good idea.
Where are you seeing this outcome? In a web browser? In the source of a page, still in a web browser? What operating system are you using? All of these make a difference.
Different operating systems use different line terminators, and HTML/XML doesn't care much about line breaking, in that the line breaks in the source just mean "whitespace" (so you'll get a space between words, but not necessarily a line break).
You could also use nl2br():
echo nl2br($str . $str2);
What this function does is replace newline characters in your string to <br>.
Also, you don't need \r, just \n.
In HTML, spaces, tabs, linefeeds and carriage returns are all equivalent white space characters.
In text, historically the following combinations have been used for newlines
\r on Apple Macs
\r\n on Windows
\n on Unix
Either use \n (*NIX) or \r\n (DOS / Windows), \n\r is very uncommon. Once you fix that, it should work just fine.
Of course, if you're outputting HTML, a line break does nothing unless it's inside <pre></pre> tags. Use <br /> to separate lines in HTML. The nl2br() function can help you to convert line breaks to HTML if needed.
Also, if you use single-quoted strings (your example has double quoted strings), \r and \n will not work. The only escape characters available in single quoted strings are \' and \.
Are you displaying the results in an HTML page? if so, HTML strips whitespace like newlines. You'd have to something like use '<br />' instead of '/r/n' in HTML.

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