Printing contents of array on separate lines

Question

Experimenting with arrays and wondering why the following DOESN'T seem to print the values on SEPARATE lines when I run it?

<?php

$my_array = array("stuff1", "stuff2", "stuff3");

echo $my_array[0] . "\n";
echo $my_array[1] . "\n";
echo $my_array[2] . "\n";

?>

Note, `
` is a literal element line break. But, if you have a wrapping context which is a whitespace context, `
` and `\n` (or `\r\n`) is probably not all that different. — Jared Farrish, Aug 13 '12 at 01:43

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:39

5

This makes the trick.

<?php
    $my_array = array("stuff1", "stuff2", "stuff3");
    foreach ( $my_array as $item ) {
        echo $item . "<br/>";
    }
?>

answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:39

hugohabel

724
6
17

1

This could be written `echo "$item
";` – Nathan Arthur Nov 10 '16 at 14:42

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 21 '17 at 15:36

3

If your viewing the output in a web browser, newlines aren't represented visually. Instead you can use HTML breaks:

<?php
    $my_array = array("stuff1", "stuff2", "stuff3");
    echo implode('<br>', $my_array);
?>

edited Jul 21 '17 at 15:36

Matt S

14,976
6
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76

answered Jul 21 '17 at 08:53

castle

73
3

Thank you for the code block! Although it _might_ answer the question, it is not much good without explanation. Could you include some explanation with your answer. From Review. – Joe Jul 21 '17 at 10:13

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:35

2

You need to print with   instead of \n because the default PHP mime type is HTML, and you use   to accomplish line breaks in HTML.

For example,

<?php

$my_array = array("stuff1", "stuff2", "stuff3");

echo $my_array[0] . "<br/>";
echo $my_array[1] . "<br/>";
echo $my_array[2] . "<br/>";

?>

answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:35

Blake

1,691
2
15
23

1

If you're using HTML5, the closing tag is not necessary. – jeremy Aug 13 '12 at 01:38
3

The closing tag is a requirement of XHTML, not HTML. Version notwithstanding. – Blake Aug 13 '12 at 01:40

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:37

2

From my PHP textbook:

One mistake often made by new php programmers (especially those from a C background) is to try to break lines of text in their browsers by putting end-of-line characters (“\n”) in the strings they print. To understand why this doesn’t work, you have to distinguish the output of php (which is usually HTML code, ready to be sent over the Internet to a browser program) from the way that output is rendered by the user’s browser. Most browser programs will make their own choices about how to split up lines in HTML text, unless you force a line break with the   tag. End-of-line characters in strings will put line breaks in the HTML source that php sends to your user’s browser (which can still be useful for creating readable HTML source), but they will usually have no effect on the way that text looks in a Web page.

The   tag is interpreted correctly by all browsers, whereas the \n will generally only affect the source code and make it more readable.

answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:37

Alex Kalicki

1,533
9
20

Not really. You were alright until you got into the `\n` vs `
` argument. A `
```
` block makes much of this beside the point. Just depends on where you come into that flow.
```
– Jared Farrish Aug 13 '12 at 01:41
So is that last part about the `\n` affecting source code wrong? Or is it just that whether or not the `\n` gets picked up depends on the tag it's enclosed in? – Alex Kalicki Aug 13 '12 at 01:48
WTF, I don't even know. How's that for an answer? – Jared Farrish Aug 13 '12 at 01:50
Hopefully you understand, but I should probably be looking at this tomorrow. – Jared Farrish Aug 13 '12 at 01:55

score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:35

-1

That's because in HTML a line break is  , not "\n".

answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:35

darma

4,687
1
24
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Totally dependent on the *display* intent, thus a `pre` block would show both, but `\n` is probably not the "same". – Jared Farrish Aug 13 '12 at 01:45

Printing contents of array on separate lines

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