preg_replace() and \n in a string

If you want to replace the literal \n and not the actual new line, try:

<?php
echo preg_replace("/\\\\n/", "<br />", 'Hello\nWorld');

Notice the number of backslashes. The double-quote enclosed string /\\\\n/ is interpreted by the PHP engine as /\\n/. This string when passed on to the preg engine is interpreted as the literal \n.

Note that both PHP will interpret "\n" as the ASCII character 0x0A. Likewise, the preg engine will interpret '/\n/' as a newline character (I am not exactly sure which one/s).

Try this:

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

Try with the multiple lines modifier on your regular expression:

preg_replace("/\\n/m", "<br />", $string);