How can I replace newline or \r\n with <br/>?

Question

I am trying to simply replace some new lines and have tried three different ways, but I don't get any change:

$description = preg_replace('/\r?\n|\r/', '<br/>', $description);
$description = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), "<br/>", $description);
$description = nl2br($description);

These should all work, but I still get the newlines. They are double: "\r\r". That shouldn't make any of these fail, right?

Wharve

Why do you have bare \r linebreaks? AFAIK even MacOSX switched to \n. – Filiation

They're coming from a client's CSV. – Wharve

possible duplicate of How to remove line breaks (no characters!) from the string? – Bennink

Answer 1

There is already the nl2br() function that inserts <br> tags before new line characters:

Example (codepad):

<?php
// Won't work
$desc = 'Line one\nline two';
// Should work
$desc2 = "Line one\nline two";

echo nl2br($desc);
echo '<br/>';
echo nl2br($desc2);
?>

But if it is still not working make sure the text $desciption is double-quoted.

That's because single quotes do not 'expand' escape sequences such as \n comparing to double quoted strings. Quote from PHP documentation:

Note: Unlike the double-quoted and heredoc syntaxes, variables and escape sequences for special characters will not be expanded when they occur in single quoted strings.

Pugliese

Look closer, he the OP specifically shows that they attempted to use nl2br and that it didn't work. – Revolutionize

Just tried to run nl2br on a string with double carriage returns, and it worked fine. – Freehanded

Look at my edit @ThomasMcCabe. I've added some (maybe) useful info. – Pugliese

Please note that nl2br does NOT REPLACE but instead INSERTS before newlines, which LEAVES the nl characters and ADDS br before them. – Bellbottoms

but if we have a file with line breaks and we want to read it by a php script and interpret those break lines , how to do it ? – Kao

Answer 2

Try using this:

$description = preg_replace("/\r\n|\r|\n/", '<br/>', $description);

Wilsey

a faster alternative could be $description = str_replace(["\r\n", "\r", "\n"], "<br/>", $description) taken from this answer – Factorize

(One could also use just /\R/ for all CR/LF linebreak combinations.) – Equip

Answer 3

You may have real characters "\" in the string (the single quote strings, as said @Robik).

If you are quite sure the '\r' or '\n' strings should be replaced as well, I'm not talking of special characters here but a sequence of two chars '\' and 'r', then escape the '\' in the replace string and it will work:

str_replace(array("\r\n","\r","\n","\\r","\\n","\\r\\n"),"<br/>",$description);

Peculiarity

nl2br is nice but this actually works (for my json stuff), thanks! – Amazement

Answer 4

Try this:

echo str_replace(array('\r\n', '\n\r', '\n', '\r'), '<br>', $description);

Hrutkay

Read about PHP strings. '\r\n' is not the same as "\r\n". – Steere

Thanks @axiac, I dont have time to test, But you mean It should be something like "\r\n" right ? – Hrutkay

This code-only answer is misleading to naive researchers. – Weaner

Answer 5

nl2br() as you have it should work fine:

$description = nl2br($description);

It's more likely that the unclosed ' on the first line of your example code is causing your issue. Remove the ' after $description...

...$description');

Bouncing

Answer 6

nl2br() worked for me, but I needed to wrap the variable with double quotes:

This works:

$description = nl2br("$description");

This doesn't work:

$description = nl2br($description);

Yeager

What is the explanation? – Laynelayney

Answer 7

This will work for sure:

str_replace("\\r", "<br />", $description); 
str_replace("\\n", "<br />", $description); 

Oaf

Absolutely incorrect suggestion. "foo\\r\\nbar" will become "foobar" instead of "foo<br/>bar". Prior to replace html renders "foo bar". – Strikebound

Meh. Works for some specific cases where the input is of a known format. – Tajuanatak

Answer 8

$description = nl2br(stripcslashes($description));

Pellmell

The explanation is missing from this answer. – Weaner

The answer from @Pellmell allows to replace the string from a query, for example:<br> $description = nl2br(stripcslashes($row["description"]));<br> stripcslashes returns a string with backslashes stripped off. Recognizes C-like \n, \r ..., octal and hexadecimal representation. – Osteoma

Answer 9

I think str_replace(array("\\r\\n", "\\r", "\\n"), " ", $string); will work.

Bowers

Answer 10

If you are using nl2br, all occurrences of \n and \r will be replaced by <br>. But if (I don’t know how it is) you still get new lines you can use

str_replace("\r","",$description);
str_replace("\n","",$description);

to replace unnecessary new lines by an empty string.

Lunarian

\r in str_replace seems to replace everything. And furthermore, you should replace it by <br>... – Floribunda