Question

I have a form that inserts blob text into a database.

When i insert it into the database using a textarea, it works fine.

For example, if i put this text into the textarea field:

test


ss
f



f
f




dsdfdsf


sdfsdfsdf

it saves it into the database as:

test


ss
f



f
f




dsdfdsf


sdfsdfsdf

So thats fine, now when i fetch the data from the database and echo it onto a div, i use nl2br(), and the divs content becomes:

test


ss
f



f
f




dsdfdsf


sdfsdfsdf

So thats still fine

HOWEVER

If i echo the output from the database into a textarea, it becomes:

test
ss
f
f
f
dsdfdsf
sdfsdfsdf

That is not using nl2br, if i do use nl2br, the textarea becomes:

test<br /><br /><br />ss<br />f<br /><br /><br /><br />f<br />f<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />dsdfdsf<br /><br /><br />sdfsdfsdf

And i want new lines, not (br /), you can see it knows how many lines there should be, but when i dont use nl2br, it will only do up to 1 new line in a row.

Ive tried googling around, and all i can find is people asking how to echo the database content to a div, but for me, it works fine to a div (with nl2br), its just to a textarea…

Ive also tried giving the textarea the css attribute: ‘white-space: pre;’, but that doesnt work either.

Answer 1

You can’t use nl2br if you are outputing the data into a textarea. Just output the data (with htmlspecialchars).

The textarea will see the \n (newlines) as a div will see <br />.

http://jsbin.com/uzinut/1