How Can I Get This PHP Script To Properly Display Newline?

Question

My understanding of PHP is that you can use either "\n" or "\r\n" or echo "<br>"; to create a new line. But my application of them simply doesn't create a new line.

What am I doing wrongly here?

Here is the code:

<?php

session_start(); // before any HTML is echoed
 
if($_POST) {
    //$email = "";
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $password = $_POST['password'];
     
    if(isset($_POST['email'])) {
        $email = str_replace(array("\r", "\n", "%0a", "%0d"), '', $_POST['email']);
        $email = filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);        
    }    
    if(isset($_POST['password'])) {
        $password = htmlspecialchars($_POST['password']);
    }
 
    $recipient = "myemail@domain.com";
     
    $headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n"
    .'Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8' . "\r\n"
    .'From: ' . $email . "\r\n";
 
    $email_content .= "Email: $email" . "\r\n";
    echo "<br />\n";
    $email_content .= "Password: $password";
 
    echo $email_content;
     
    if(mail($recipient, $email_content, $headers)) {
				   header("Location: default-image.png");
				echo "          <script language=javascript>
		//alert('Done, Click Ok');
		window.location='default-image.png';
		</script>";
    } else {
        echo '<p>ERROR! Please go back and try again.</p>';
    }
     
} else {
    echo '<p>Something went wrong</p>';
}
 
?>

Thanks for your time and input.

Answer 1

You should use '\n' for new line it will show in output

$email_content .= "Email: $email" . "\n\n\n";
$email_content .= "\n\n";
$email_content .= "Password: $password";
echo $email_content;

you will see the password start with new line

Answer 2

tl;dr

Use \n to clean your code. Use <br /> to add break lines. Make sure to concatenated <br /> to your variable.

---

The \n will clean up the source code view and the <br /> needs to be concatenated to your variable.

$email_content .= "Email: $email" . "<br />\n";
$email_content .= "Password: $password";

Note that if you don't include the \n, when viewing your source code in the browser, you might see that the html could be on the same line.

<?php

    $email = "foo";
    $password = "bar";
    $email_content1 = "";
    $email_content2 = "";

    //without the \n to cleanup the source code
    $email_content1 .= "Email: $email" . "<br />";
    $email_content1 .= "Password: $password";

    echo $email_content1;

    //ignore, used for break
    echo "\n\n<br />\n\n";

    //with the \n to cleanup the source code
    $email_content2 .= "Email: $email" . "<br />\n";
    $email_content2 .= "Password: $password";

    echo $email_content2;

?>

The source code would look like:

Email: foo<br />Password: bar

<br />

Email: foo<br />
Password: bar

Answer 3

You assign the values to a variable. The echo is not in that context and will output your values to your page output.

$email_content .= "Email: $email" . "\r\n";
$email_content .= "<br />\n";
$email_content .= "Password: $password";
echo $email_content;

That is the correct way.

The next thing is that <br /> is the representation for a new line in HTML. \n and \r\n is the ASCII representation for a new line. This is mostly used in text files and other editors or CSV files for example. So you mixup different things.