How to correctly display text from db which has HTML formatting and text formatting

Question

I have text in db which looks like this:

<p>
blah blah

blah
</p>

When I get the text out of db and display it, I am able to get the <p></p> to make the paragraph space, but the paragraph between the lines of blah does not show up.

When I try to make it work together, I end up with new lines after the natural new line from pressing the enter, and new line from <p> so I end up with way too much space between paragraphs.

Is there a way to make sure both ways of formatting work together nicely?

You have to replace newlines (\n) with <br> tags before displaying — bfavaretto
– bfavaretto, Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 19:20

Derik Nel · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-31 19:21:41Z

4

You can use :

echo nl2br($db_string);

answered Jan 31, 2012 at 19:21

Derik Nel

4232 silver badges10 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Crashspeeder Over a year ago

While this is technically correct and may produce the desired result, it appears the OP is simply misusing the paragraph tag.

Crashspeeder · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-31 19:22:52Z

2

I'd say the correct way to go about this is fixing the HTML. This doesn't seem like a PHP issue. You say you want to display space between the first line blah blah and the second line blah. I would rewrite it to be:

<p>
    blah blah
</p>
<p>
    blah
</p>

answered Jan 31, 2012 at 19:22

Crashspeeder

4,3112 gold badges18 silver badges21 bronze badges

Comments

recursive · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-31 19:25:36Z

1

You can apply this css rule

p {
    white-space: pre;
}

If you do it this way, then you won't need to do any transformation of the string itself.

answered Jan 31, 2012 at 19:25

recursive

86.5k36 gold badges155 silver badges246 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to correctly display text from db which has HTML formatting and text formatting

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related