Rails -- Add a line break into a text area

Question

I got a rails app where I can input a few paragraphs of text into my model. The problem is I dont know how to input any line breaks.

I've tried to add " {ln}{/ln} ; {&nbsp} and {br}{/br}" but that only displays the html as text and no break.

Is there anyway I can set it so the text area control will use any of the html I place within the model entry?

Is there any thing I can type so rails will recognize, hey put a line here?

Where does it not render correctly? Within the actual textarea when you go back to edit the value (i.e. `<%= f.text_area :description %>`)? Or on the page when you're rendering the value plainly (i.e. `<%= obj.description %>`)? — Ian Lesperance, Jun 29 '10 at 03:14
on the page where I'm trying to render the data it just places the as text — ChrisWesAllen, Jun 29 '10 at 15:05

score 111 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 30 '10 at 00:54

111

Line breaks in textareas are produced as `\n'. However, the problem is that if you simply dump it into your view, it will just be line breaks in your HTML source.

You can try using the Rails simple_format helper to take care of some of this for you: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/TextHelper.html#M002285

It will auto-convert line breaks to HTML tags. You can use it with something like <%= simple_format(my_text_field) %>.

answered Jun 30 '10 at 00:54

Karl

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For the record, to avoid XSS attacks you should be escaping the var like this: <%= simple_format h(my_text_field) %> – tomeduarte Jan 15 '11 at 15:51
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@tomeduarte simple_format sanitizes by default, h() isn't needed. This is an old post...maybe this functionality is new. – tybro0103 Mar 26 '12 at 18:19
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@tybro0103 it's rails 3 specific, introduced in https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/84d387bc0f3f3f6641b08d0ce40e924f09105c19 - 2010/06/17; Either I didn't know or assumed rails 2.x (can't remember). Thanks for mentioning it for the following readers! :) – tomeduarte Mar 27 '12 at 21:30
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The problem with simple_format is that it is too clever. It will preserve any \n in your text, but it will assume that two \n's are meant to indicate a new paragraph and will take your input and wrap specific parts of it in `
` tags. It really depends on what your needs are which method you should use. If you _absolutely_ must preserve all new lines, you should use the accepted answer. Otherwise use simple_format and plan for paragraph tags where you'll be outputting this value.
– Aaron May 10 '12 at 14:43

score 88 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 29 '10 at 04:36

The problem isn't so much editing the value as it is rendering it later. To add newline characters to your value while editing it in a textarea, just hit the return key. When you re-edit that value later, the whitespace should still be there.

Rendering the whitespace is the tricky part. In HTML, whitespace is generally insignificant. A renderer like the one your browser uses will display a single space for any continuous string of whitespace. So merely dumping the value onto the page won't be enough:

<%= obj.description %>

Even though your value may be "One \t \n \n Two", it will show up on the screen as "One Two".

To get those new line characters to actually separate the lines when displayed, you'll need to convert them to HTML before rendering:

<%= obj.description.gsub(/\n/, '<br/>') %>

Of course, if users are entering data that will be included in your HTML, you should be escaping the values to protect against XSS. If new lines are the only thing you need to support, it should be as simple as this:

<%= h(obj.description).gsub(/\n/, '<br/>') %>

If you want to allow more complex formatting, look into Markdown and Textile (both of which Rails provides helper view methods for). Just be sure to investigate what if any support they provide for XSS prevention.

As of Rails 3, you'll have to add .html_safe: <%= h(obj.description).gsub(/\n/, '
').html_safe %> — tybro0103, Mar 26 '12 at 18:22

score 33 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 11 '15 at 02:30

33

Keep user input unmodified and add this to your css:

white-space: pre-line;

It will display \r or \n (enter) in user input as a new line.

answered Feb 11 '15 at 02:30

bershika

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So much easier. Good answer. – Dennis Best Apr 07 '16 at 02:38
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This should be the answer. – Onichan May 07 '16 at 08:29
simple_format seems to only preserve 1 line break even though you have multiple when using in Mailer views. This answer works1 – Abdullah Aden Nov 04 '20 at 14:09
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Wow, can't believe this was here all these years. And it's supported by every browser! – installero Dec 17 '20 at 10:58

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 19 '12 at 23:03

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Here is another way to display the line breaks in a string while still escaping the rest of the text:

<%= safe_join(@object.textarea_input.split("\r\n"), "<br />".html_safe) %>

answered Nov 19 '12 at 23:03

vpsz

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I liked and added my own customised thing in it – Taimoor Changaiz Dec 29 '12 at 15:56
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Also you can use the `tag` helper, like this: `safe_join(@object.textarea_input.split("\r\n"), tag(:br))` – amoebe Oct 30 '17 at 13:54

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 27 '12 at 12:02

the problem with simple_format is that it's also adding other tags like <hr><h1>...
if you just want line breaks without other tags i suggest you build a partial (lets call it line_break):

<% text.split("\n").each do |t| %>
  <%= t %><br>
<% end %>

then, just call it from your view:

<%= render partial: 'line_break', locals: {text: some_text} %>

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Apr 29 '13 at 17:55

What version of rails are you using?? Because the way to handle this, is different in rails 2 and 3.

Let's say the value of the record is "foo bar"

In rails 3, if you want to evaluate the html, you could do <%=raw "foo bar" %>, if you do so, you'll get a line break when you will see the view.

In rails 2 you don't have to do that, just do <%= "foo bar" %>

Also, HTML doesn't get evaluated in a textarea anyway.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 22 '12 at 23:22

1

See here http://code.byteblues.com/2012/03/23/preloading-a-text-input-area-text_area-with-data-that-contains-a-line-break/

<%=raw text_area_tag :keywords, keywords, :rows => 8 %>

answered Mar 22 '12 at 23:22

moo

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 19 '14 at 20:10

0

The answers above were good:

the gsub (@Ian) worked well
the simple_format (@Karl) was a bit over the top as @Aaron pointed out, wrapping everything in

So I tweaked as follows:

simple_format(value, {}, wrapper_tag: 'div')

answered Jul 19 '14 at 20:10

Jon Kern

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 29 '10 at 02:15

0

\n if memory serves (it hasn't been doing so well today... try at your own risk lol)

Edit: making the assumption you were talking about a textarea, if it is simple output, just use  

answered Jun 29 '10 at 02:15

mynameiscoffey

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Nah I tried \n as well as the same within bracket and it still just output the code as if it were text – ChrisWesAllen Jun 29 '10 at 02:30
Could you provide the code you are using so we can get a better idea of what we are looking at instead of random guesses? – mynameiscoffey Jun 29 '10 at 02:31
Sure thing... the view has
<%= f.label :description %>
<%= f.text_area :description %>
thats pretty much it. I just wanted to turn off the html within the text area – ChrisWesAllen Jun 29 '10 at 02:56

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 18 '19 at 20:22

The other answers are wrong. Text area does not render
as line breaks, because the innerHTML value of the TEXTAREA element does not render HTML..

You need to add the Line feed HTML entity: 


EXAMPLE:

<textarea><%= "LINE 1&#10;LINE 2&#10;LINE 3".html_safe %></textarea>

See also New line in text area - Stack Overflow

score -2 · Answer 11 · edited Sep 08 '11 at 02:37

-2

If you are simply displaying your string in the view. then try it with

< p >This is my text< / p >< br />

edited Sep 08 '11 at 02:37

p.campbell

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answered Jun 29 '10 at 07:50

sameera207

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Rails -- Add a line break into a text area

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