Question

For example:

A user submits a form with a <textarea name="mytext" cols="35" rows="2"></textarea> and presses ENTER within it. How would I replace the CR-LF with a <br />?

Answer 1

CF has a function for this called ParagraphFormat():

<cfset form.userText = paragraphFormat(form.usertext)/>

From the help docs –

Replaces characters in a string:

• Single newline characters (CR/LF sequences) with spaces
• Double newline characters with HTML paragraph tags (<p>)

It may do more than you want in that it also looks for double line breaks and adds <p> and </p> tags.

Ben also has an enhanced version (a UDF) called paragraph2 that would be easy to modify to get the exact affect you want. Here’s the link:

http://www.cflib.org/udf/ParagraphFormat2