CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptphpstringnewline
Juicy
Juicy

Reputation: 12510

PHP string containing line breaks causins problems when printing out Javascript

I have a PHP string that contains an address and as such contains a few lines. One example could be:

$custDetails = "
123 Main Street
City
Area Code
";

Although this address is retrieved using an SQL query, not declared in PHP.

I would like to replace the go to line characters by something else, temporarily, to make modifying this string easier in another javascript function. But I'm running in to some problems. This code:

echo "
<script>
  if ('$custDetails'.indexOf('\n') != -1)
     alert('yes');
  alert('$custDetails');
</script>
";

Becomes:

<script>
  if ('123 Main Street
City
Area Code'.indexOf('
') != -1)
  alert('yes');
  alert('123 Main Street
City
Area Code');
</script>

after treated by PHP. The "go to lines" in the string are treated as go to line in the script tag, and as such messes up the script. Additionally, I can't detect the \n char because it is treated as a go to line, and messes up the script...

How can I make a string with multiple lines usable in javascript?

EDIT: As suggested in one of the answers, I tried replacing "\n" with 'n' in PHP before calling the javascript

$custDetailsBis = str_replace("\n", '\n', $custDetails);

echo "<script>
alert(\"$custDetailsBis\");
</script>";

I still doesn't work, output in browser:

<script>
  alert("16 St Andrews Street
\nDundee
\nDD1 2EX");
</script>

Note that I know have \n that have appeared on the browser output, but there are still line breaks. Again the line breaks are causing errors in the javascript.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1196

Answers (4)

Giraldi
Giraldi

Reputation: 17291

You can use json_encode which should automatically replaces new lines with \r\n.

json_encode($custDetails);

Upvotes: 1

George Brighton
George Brighton

Reputation: 5151

Try this:

$custDetailsEscaped = str_replace("\n", '\r\n', $custDetails);

Note the double quotes for the first argument and single quotes for the second - it's significant here.

Then replace all instances of $custDetails in your echo statement with $custDetailsEscaped:

$custDetailsEscaped = str_replace("\n", '\r\n', $custDetails); 

echo "
<script>
  if ('$custDetailsEscaped'.indexOf('\\r\\n') != -1)
     alert('yes');
  alert('$custDetailsEscaped');
</script>
";

Output:

<script>
  if ('\r\n123 Main Street\r\nCity\r\nArea Code\r\n'.indexOf('\r\n') != -1)
     alert('yes');
  alert('\r\n123 Main Street\r\nCity\r\nArea Code\r\n');
</script>

Upvotes: 2

Pep Lainez
Pep Lainez

Reputation: 949

Before echoing the var from php you should replace \n with \\n so javascript will handle it as \n.

Upvotes: 0

S.Thiongane
S.Thiongane

Reputation: 6905

You can use a str_replace() to change the End Of Line buy empty string.

This post may help , @elusive uses in his answer regex to replace the end of lines.

Upvotes: 0

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