Question

For some strange reason, inserting echo "\n"; and other scape sequence characters are not working for me, that’s why I am just using <br /> instead.

The images of the results of examples in books and other documentations seems just alright. I’m currently using XAMPP and already used WAMPP with the same actual result. Why is that?

Edit:

It seems that I cannot understand the concept after comparing your answers with this:
PHP Linefeeds (\n) Not Working

Edit:

Sorry I didn’t realized that the link above is referring to a php code writing to a file. I just wonder why I have these few php sample programs that uses \n even though it outputs in a webpage. Thanks everyone.

Answer 1

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

PHP Linefeeds (\n) Not Working is referring to sending output to a file rather than the browser.