Question

I am accessing data via an API that returns strings in the following format:

Hello this is some text.\n\nHere’s some more that includes a phrase in
\”quote marks\”.\n\nAnd another thing:\n\n* Bullet point.\n*
Bullet point.\n* Bullet point.\n* Fin.

This is a sinatra app, and in my view I simply access the variable and display this with something like:

<%= thing.description %>

When it is rendered, none of the newlines are actually respected. It’s all shown as a single line. I’m not sure of the right approach to fix that. Is there a way to replace the \ns with <br> tags? Or something else?

Answer 1

You can enclose the string in a <pre> block (usually has the additional effect of using a monospaced font), or you can enclose it in a block of your choice and style it with white-space: pre;.