PHP: nl2br - Manual

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Last updated: Sat, 27 Jan 2007

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# nl2br

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)

nl2br -- Вставляет HTML код разрыва строки перед каждым переводом строки

## Description

string nl2br ( string string )

Возвращает строку `string`, в которой перед каждым переводом строки вставлен '<br />'

> Замечание: Начиная с PHP 4.0.5, nl2br() работает в соответствии со стандартом XHTML. До версии 4.0.5 использовалось '<br>' вместо '<br />'.

Пример 1. Пример использования nl2br()

`<?php echo nl2br("foo - это вам не\n bar"); ?>`

выведет:

    foo - этовам не<br />
     bar

См. также описание функций htmlspecialchars(), htmlentities(), wordwrap() и str_replace().

add a note User Contributed Notes
nl2br
moester at g-mail
25-Feb-2007 01:45
`<?php
function nls2p($str)
{
return str_replace('<p></p>', '', '<p>'
. preg_replace('#([\r\n]\s*?[\r\n]){2,}#', '</p>$0<p>', $str)
. '</p>');
}
?>
Turns two or more consecutive newlines (separated by possible white space) into a <p>...</p>.
Pass result to regular nl2br() to add <br/> to remaining nl's, eg,
<?php
echo nl2br(nls2p("Paragraph1\n\nParagraph2\n line1\n line2\n"));
?>
result:
<p>Paragraph1</p>
<p>Paragraph2<br/>
line1<br/>
line2<br/></p>`
ngkongs at gmail dot com
23-Feb-2007 04:12
`to replace all linebreaks to <br />
the best solution (IMO) is:
function nl2br2($string) {
$string = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), "<br />", $string);
return $string;
}
because each OS have different ASCII chars for linebreak:
windows = \r\n
unix = \n
mac = \r
works perfect for me`
fili at fili dot nl
11-Feb-2007 11:07
`<?php
function p2nl ($str) {
return preg_replace(array("/<p[^>]*>/iU","/<\/p[^>]*>/iU"),
array("","\n"),
$str);
}
$string = "0<p>1</p><p>2</p>3";
var_dump(p2nl($string));
/*
Output:
string(6) "01
2
3"
*/
?>`
Moore (at) Hs-Furtwangen (dot) De
18-Aug-2006 11:13
`Here a litle function that might come handy one time:
It gives back a String and adds a <BR> (you can change it to <br />) to every line end. And it adds $num blanks to the front of the next line.
<?php
function nl2brnl($text, $num)
{
return preg_replace("/\\r\\n|\\n|\\r/", sprintf("% -".(5+$num)."s","<BR>\\n"), $text);
}
$a = " one\\n two\\r\\n three";
$b = nl2brnl($a, 2);
var_dump($b);
/* output will be:
string(30) " one<BR>
two<BR>
three"
*/
echo " <P>\\n ";
echo $b
/* output will be:
<P>
one<BR>
two<BR>
three
*/
?>
Is helpfull for avouding code_soup.`
godfrank DOMAIN-IS msn TLD-IS com
17-May-2006 09:12
`I have modified my function found in the previous post.
It now uses preg_replace() which should technically be faster than ereg_replace(). You can also specify what you want to replace "\r\n" with. If you use the function with only one parameter, it will use '<br />' by default.
<?php
function nl2brStrict($text, $replacement = '<br />')
{
return preg_replace("((\r\n)+)", trim($replacement), $text);
}
?>`
chayden at chayden dot com
10-Mar-2006 03:07
`Using buzoganylaszlo at yahoo dot com simple nl2p function, I've written a more HTML compliant function to deal with line breaks ...
<?php
/* FORMATS LINE BREAKS WITH PROPER HTML TAGS */
function format_html($content)
{
$content = "<p>" . str_replace("\r\n", "<br/>", $content) . "";
$content = "" . str_replace("<br/><br/>", "</p><p>", $content) . "";
return "" . str_replace("<br/><li>", "<li>", $content) . "";
}
?>
Here is an example of its use ...
<?php
/* CONTENT TO BE PROCCESSED */
$content = "This is a\r\nline break.\r\n\r\nAnd this is a new paragraph.";
/* USE OF format_html FUNCTION */
/* NOTE: If you want 100% proper HTML tags, you'll need to add a closing paragraph tag (</p>) as shown below. */
echo format_html("$content</p>");
?>
The above will print ...
<p>This is a
<br/>line break.
<p>And this is a paragraph.</p>`
Anders Norrbring
09-Mar-2006 01:49
`Seems like I was a bit too quick and left out the vital part, and I also missed to escape the slashes in the post...
<?php
function br2nl($text)
{
return preg_replace('/<br\\\\s*?\\/??>/i', "\\n", $text);
}
?>`
Anders Norrbring
09-Mar-2006 01:28
`Seeing all these suggestions on a br2nl function, I can also see that neither would work with a sloppy written html line break.. Users can't be trusted to write good code, we know that, and mixing case isn't too uncommon.
I think this little snippet would do most tricks, both XHTML style and HTML, even mixed case like <Br> <bR /> and even <br > or <br />.
<?php
function br2nl($text)
{
return preg_replace('/<br\\s*?\/??>/i', '', $text);
}
?>`
tom dot crawford at emailsystems dot com
11-Jan-2006 02:32
`Note to foltscane at yahoo dot com
Wouldn't it be easier to do this:
$encoded_string = nl2br( htmlentities( $string_to_encode ) );`
buzoganylaszlo at yahoo dot com
05-Jan-2006 04:51
`There is a simple nl2p function:
<?php
function nl2p($text) {
return "<p>" . str_replace("\n", "</p><p>", $text) . "</p>";
}
?>`
foltscane at yahoo dot com
03-Jan-2006 08:47
`I was interested in changing \n to <BR> but then still having htmlentities enforced inbetween these added <BR>s. So I wrote this simple textentities which will do just that.
function textentities($s)
{
while($sp = strpos($s,"\n"))
{
echo htmlentities(substr($s,0,$sp))."<BR>";
$s = substr($s,$sp+1,strlen($s));
}
echo htmlentities($s);
}`
btm at anfo dot pl
20-Dec-2005 03:22
`Comment on emailfire at gmail dot com nl2brr. It should be:
<? return str_replace(array("\r\n", "\n", "\r"), "<br>", $text); ?>
You've forgotten the backslashes.`
jonasnicklas at hotmail dot com
19-Dec-2005 02:04
`Re: emailfire
The function emailfire posted is missing some backslashes, a better alternative to it is:
<?php
$foo = "This\nis a\r\ntest\rmessage";
function nl2brr($text)
{
return preg_replace("/\r\n|\n|\r/", "<br>", $text);
}
echo nl2brr($foo);
# Output: This<br>is a<br>test<br>message
?>
I put both functions in a for-loop and surprisingly preg_replace is a lot faster, I assume this is because str_replace will search the string several times. If you know what kind of breaks (Windows/Unix) you are expecting it is obviously better to use str_replace.
A note: Internet Explorer does not have any XHTML support, even browsers that DO have XHTML support (such as Firefox or Opera) will not parse pages as XHTML unless told so via a Header (for example through php's header function, like <?php header(Content-type: application/xhtml+xml); ?>), the tag <br /> is invalid in HTML 4. Since all browsers show it correctly anyway (though according to the specification they shouldn't), you could simply not care...`
silya at rfvnu dot lg dot ua
04-Dec-2005 08:02
`Trouble was with file function when long tags where broken by \r\n and function strip_tags worked not correctly with every element of array. This step prepare string from file for using function file and then strip_tags. (For example, html file generated by M$ Word)
<?php
$str = file_get_contents($filename);
$str = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $str);
$opentag = 0;
$nl = 0;
for($i = 0; $i < strlen($str); $i++)
{
if($opentag == 1 && $str[$i] == "\n")
{
$str[$i] = ' ';
continue;
}
if($str[$i] == '<')
$opentag = 1;
elseif($str[$i] == '>')
$opentag = 0;
else ;
}
?>`
thunberg at gmail dot com
13-Sep-2005 11:15
`I wrote this because I wanted users to be able to do basic layout formatting by hitting enter in a textbox but still wanted to allow HTML elements (tables, lists, etc). The problem was in order for the output to be correct with nl2br the HTML had to be "scrunched" up so newlines wouldn't be converted; the following function solved my problem so I figured I'd share.
<?php
function nl2br_skip_html($string)
{
// remove any carriage returns (mysql)
$string = str_replace("\r", '', $string);
// replace any newlines that aren't preceded by a > with a <br />
$string = preg_replace('/(?<!>)\n/', "<br />\n", $string);
return $string;
}
?>`
webmaster at cafe-clope dot net
13-Aug-2005 03:50
`based on previous notes, a generalist function that works with any <tag>...</tag>, and its ^-1. (use it with "li", for example) :
<?php
function nl2any($string, $tag = 'p', $feed = '') {
// making tags
$start_tag = "<$tag" . ($feed ? ' '.$feed : '') . '>' ;
$end_tag = "</$tag>" ;
// exploding string to lines
$lines = preg_split('`[\n\r]+`', trim($string)) ;
// making new string
$string = '' ;
foreach($lines as $line)
$string .= "$start_tag$line$end_tag\n" ;
return $string ;
}
function any2nl($string, $tag = 'p') {
//exploding
preg_match_all("`<".$tag."[^>]*>(.*)</".$tag.">`Ui", $string, $results) ;
// reimploding without tags
return implode("\n", array_filter($results[1])) ;
}
?>
I just had a problem when trying "`<$tag[^>]*>(.*)</$tag>`Ui" regexp string, I can't figure out why.`
x against capital x at x everywhere x
11-Aug-2005 05:47
`Regarding last post by admin at ninthcircuit, I think:
"rather than get into nasty regular expressions" === "I don't understand regular expressions"
No offense, but please be aware that kristen's solution is much more robust. The ninthcircuit solution will miss cases when there are differences in case (e.g., BR instead of br) and when there is more than one space between the r and the / (e.g., <br />).
We all like robust code, don't we?`
admin at ninthcircuit dot info
06-Jun-2005 02:00
`As stated in the manual above, PHP's nl2br() feature only puts a "<br />" tag before each newline ("\n"). So -- if you intend to code a br2nl() function for yourselves, all you have to do is remove every occurence of "<br />" or "<br>".
Rather than get into nasty regular expressions to accomplish this, just use what PHP has built in already -- str_replace():
<?php
/* br2nl for use with HTML forms, etc. */
function br2nl($text)
{
/* Remove XHTML linebreak tags. */
$text = str_replace("<br />","",$text);
/* Remove HTML 4.01 linebreak tags. */
$text = str_replace("<br>","",$text);
/* Return the result. */
return $text;
}
?>
The final result from this function being called is whatever was entered before XHTML/HTML linebreaks were added.
All newlines are preserved by default, as per PHP ln2br() specification. Since the code above preserves newlines also, you can expect your data to reappear in the same way it was entered.
Hope this helps.`
kristen at paristemi dot com
16-May-2005 01:12
`A note to add to the br2nl. Since nl2br doesn't remove the line breaks when adding in the <br /> tags, it is necessary to strip those off before you convert all of the tags, otherwise you will get double spacing. Here is the modified function:
function br2nl($str) {
$str = preg_replace("/(\r\n|\n|\r)/", "", $str);
return preg_replace("=<br */?>=i", "\n", $str);
}`
sebastian at no spam flashhilfe.de
10-May-2005 08:16
`// Convert only <br> <br /> and <br /> to newline
function br2nl($str) {
return preg_replace('=<br */?>=i', "\n", $str);
}
The Script at the bottom whit '!<br.*>!iU' match tags like <break> or something.`
jochem at vuilnisbak dot com
02-Apr-2005 08:43
`For people trying br2nl, but getting stuck at double newlines (or at least more then needed), try this:
<?php
function br2nl($coffee) {
$coffee = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $coffee); // make from windows-returns, *nix-returns
$coffee = str_replace("<br />\n", "\n", $coffee); // to retrieve it
return $coffee;
}
?>
The first thing \r\n is replacing linebreaks made on Windows systems. I believe *nix systems only place \n (not sure about it).
Have fun.
Jochem`
webKami [at] akdomains.com
01-Apr-2005 04:54
`here is the CSS friendly version, called nl2li_css()
Inputs a param css_class (default ="none") and pass it as class of All <li> List Items.
<?
function nl2li_css($str,$css_class = "none",$ordered = 0, $type = "1") {
//check if its ordered or unordered list, set tag accordingly
if ($ordered)
{
$tag="ol";
//specify the type
$tag_type="type=$type";
}
else
{
$tag="ul";
//set $type as NULL
$tag_type=NULL;
}
// add ul / ol tag
// add tag type
// add first list item starting tag - use css class
// add last list item ending tag
$str = "<$tag $tag_type><li class=\"$css_class\">" . $str ."</li></$tag>";
//replace /n with adding two tags
// add previous list item ending tag
// add next list item starting tag - use css class
$str = str_replace("\n","</li><br />\n<li class=\"$css_class\">",$str);
//spit back the modified string
return $str;
}
?>
Suggestions welcome again :)`
webkami [at] gmail dout com
30-Mar-2005 07:42
`A handy function to convert new line \n seprated text into ordered or unordered list. I am calling it nl2li, suggestions welcome. Second optional parameter sets the list as ordered (1) or unordered (0 = default). Third parameter can be used to specify type of ordered list, valid inputs are "1" = default ,"a","A","i","I".
function nl2li($str,$ordered = 0, $type = "1") {
//check if its ordered or unordered list, set tag accordingly
if ($ordered)
{
$tag="ol";
//specify the type
$tag_type="type=$type";
}
else
{
$tag="ul";
//set $type as NULL
$tag_type=NULL;
}
// add ul / ol tag
// add tag type
// add first list item starting tag
// add last list item ending tag
$str = "<$tag $tag_type><li>" . $str ."</li></$tag>";
//replace /n with adding two tags
// add previous list item ending tag
// add next list item starting tag
$str = str_replace("\n","</li><br />\n<li>",$str);
//spit back the modified string
return $str;
}`
mike at openconcept dot ca
10-Mar-2005 10:02
`There are other nl2p examples above, but think this one will provide nicer html. Also threw in a very related br2p function for all of those folks who want to strip away the <br /> tags which give their designers the blues.
/**
* replacement for php's nl2br tag that produces more designer friendly html
*
* Modified from: http://www.php-editors.com/contest/1/51-read.html
*
* @param string $text
* @param string $cssClass
* @return string
*/
function nl2p($text, $cssClass=''){
// Return if there are no line breaks.
if (!strstr($text, "\n")) {
return $text;
}
// Add Optional css class
if (!empty($cssClass)) {
$cssClass = ' class="' . $cssClass . '" ';
}
// put all text into <p> tags
$text = '<p' . $cssClass . '>' . $text . '</p>';
// replace all newline characters with paragraph
// ending and starting tags
$text = str_replace("\n", "</p>\n<p" . $cssClass . '>', $text);
// remove empty paragraph tags & any cariage return characters
$text = str_replace(array('<p' . $cssClass . '></p>', '<p></p>', "\r"), '', $text);
return $text;
} // end nl2p
/**
* expanding on the nl2p tag above to convert user contributed
* <br />'s to <p>'s so it displays more nicely.
*
* @param string $text
* @param string $cssClass
* @return string
*/
function br2p($text, $cssClass=''){
if (!eregi('<br', $text)) {
return $text;
}
if (!empty($cssClass)) {
$cssClass = ' class="' . $cssClass . '" ';
}
// put all text into <p> tags
$text = '<p' . $cssClass . '>' . $text . '</p>';
// replace all break tags with paragraph
// ending and starting tags
$text = str_replace(array('<br>', '<br />', '<BR>', '<BR />'), "</p>\n<p" . $cssClass . '>', $text);
// remove empty paragraph tags
$text = str_replace(array('<p' . $cssClass . '></p>', '<p></p>', "<p>\n</p>"), '', $text);
return $text;
}
This is all code from Back-End CMS (http://www.back-end.org), a template based gpl php/mysql cms.
Mike`
freedman AT freeformit . com
03-Mar-2005 04:45
`here's a modified version that allows the addition of style tags to the <p> marker
function nl2p($str,$addtag='') {
return str_replace('<p'.$addtag.'></p>', '', '<p'.$addtag.'>' . preg_replace('#\n|\r#', '</p>$0<p'.$addtag.'>', $str) . '</p>');
}
$x = "abc\ndef"
echo nl2p($x); // outputs <p>abc</p>\n<p>def</p>
echo nl2p($x,' style="text-align:justify"');
// outputs <p style="text-align:justify">abc</p>\n<p style="text-align:justify">def</p>`
asentis at gmail dot com
23-Feb-2005 05:06
`If you want to respect W3C, you can use this function :
<?php
function nl2p($str)
{
return str_replace('<p></p>', '', '<p>' . preg_replace('#\n|\r#', '</p>$0<p>', $str) . '</p>');
}
?>
Cya :)`
CGameProgrammer at gmail dot com
30-Jan-2005 05:28
`It's important to remember that this function does NOT replace newlines with <br> tags. Rather, it inserts a <br> tag before each newline, but it still preserves the newlines themselves! This caused problems for me regarding a function I was writing -- I forgot the newlines were still being preserved.
If you don't want newlines, do:
$Result = str_replace( "\n", '<br />', $Text );`
17-Jan-2005 12:04
`string nl2br_indent ( string string [, mixed indent] )
This function adds break tags before newlines as nl2br and also indents the text.
If indent is not specified, string will not be indented.
<?php
function nl2br_indent($string, $indent = 0)
{
//remove carriage returns
$string = str_replace("\r", '', $string);
//convert indent to whitespaces if it is a integer.
if (is_int($indent)) {
//set indent to length of the string
$indent = str_repeat(' ', (int)$indent);
}
//replace newlines with "<br />\n$indent"
$string = str_replace("\n", "<br />\n".$indent, $string);
//add the indent to the first line too
$string = $indent.$string;
return $string;
}
?>
This is for example useful to indent text in html tags:
<?php
$str = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
In massa nunc, cursus eu, tincidunt in, eleifend non, enim. In ut felis. Nunc
scelerisque ante vel risus. Nulla quis metus non elit scelerisque tincidunt.'
echo '<html>'."\n";
echo ' <p>'."\n";
echo nl2br_indent($str, 4)."\n";
echo ' </p>'."\n";
echo '</html>'."\n";
?>
will return:
<html>
<p>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.<br />
In massa nunc, cursus eu, tincidunt in, eleifend non, enim. In ut felis. Nunc<br />
scelerisque ante vel risus. Nulla quis metus non elit scelerisque tincidunt.
</p>
</html>
- $str is indented by 4 spaces.`
spertica at tiscalinet dot it
14-Jan-2005 01:23
`An easy way to get HTML formatted with <br> from a ASCII text file with CR & LF:
<?php
$string_text=file_get_contents("/path_to/file.txt"); // load text file in var
$new_text=nl2br($string_text); // convert CR & LF in <br> in newvar
echo $new_text; // print out HTML formatted text
unset($string_text, $new_text); // clear all vars to unload memory
?>`
php at keithtyler dot com
05-Nov-2004 10:58
`Take extreme care with nl2br(). It is a simple replacement function -- apparently equivalent to preg_replace("\n","<br \>\n").
It should not be used on input from HTML textareas, unless all HTML tags are stripped from the input first. nl2br() does not do anything special to newlines that occur within HTML elements (such as the <a> anchor tag).
Some browsers will submit textarea data with newlines inserted at the points where the user's input wrapped to the next line. This can cause anchor links to break and other erratic appearance of HTML:
<a <br \>href=http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.nl2br.php>PHP nl2br()</a>
or worse:
<a href="http://www.site.com/user/page with <br />spaces.html">URL with spaces</a>
A lot of people use nl2br() to allow their users to insert explicit line and paragraph breaks via newlines, and their applications will exhibit this problem when used with such browsers.`
php at sharpdreams dot com
05-Apr-2004 09:52
`Better br2nl function (allows for non-valid XHTML tags). I find it useful for parsing 3rd party websites to convert their screwy BR formats to \n.
<?php
function br2nl( $data ) {
return preg_replace( '!<br.*>!iU', "\n", $data );
}
?>`
greywyvern - greywyvern - com
05-Feb-2004 01:11
`Just a couple adjustments to the function below.
<?php
function nl2br_pre($string, $wrap = 40) {
$string = nl2br($string);
preg_match_all("/<pre[^>]*?>(.|\n)*?<\/pre>/", $string, $pre1);
for ($x = 0; $x < count($pre1[0]); $x++) {
$pre2[$x] = preg_replace("/\s*<br[^>]*?>\s*/", "", $pre1[0][$x]);
$pre2[$x] = preg_replace("/([^\n]{".$wrap."})(?!<\/pre>)(?!\n)/", "$1\n", $pre2[$x]);
$pre1[0][$x] = "/".preg_quote($pre1[0][$x], "/")."/";
}
return preg_replace($pre1[0], $pre2, $string);
}
?>
You might ask, why not just use:
<?php $string = str_replace("\n", "<br />", $string); ?>
... and prevent double spacing that way by actually *replacing* the \n with <br />, whereas nl2br() *inserts* a <br />.
Well, the answer is, doing it that way makes all the HTML output appear on a single line! Ugly, to say the least. The function above will keep your HTML source output formatted the same way you input it. :)`
matt at mullenweg dot com
15-Oct-2002 08:23
`I put together a little function to convert multiple line breaks into XHTML paragraph tags. It also changes newlines within the psuedo-paragraphs to <br />. This should be well suited to CMS where (in my case) you don't want the client to deal with *any* HTML but you still want proper paragraphs for your pages.
USAGE: You can write your text just like I have here, using the enter key as the only formatting tool. This can probably be made more efficient and I'll keep an updated (and unmangled) version of it at
http://www.photomatt.net/scripts/autop`
add a note
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Last updated: Sat, 27 Jan 2007
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