preserving linebreaks in values in JSON key-value pairs

Question

I am not sure if line breaks are allowed in JSON values. I certainly am unable to create the following in JSON

{"foo": "I am not sure if line breaks are 
         allowed in JSON values. I certainly 
         am unable to create the following in JSON"}

The following certainly does not work

{"foo": "I am not sure if line breaks are\nallowed in JSON values. I certainly\nam unable to create the following in JSON"}

Preamble: I want to send a long message like above either to the browser or to the console app and display it neatly formatted so it is legible to the user.

See a similar [SO question answered](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42068/how-do-i-handle-newlines-in-json) — Gene Vayngrib, Dec 30 '12 at 18:12
possible duplicate of [Multiline strings in JSON](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2392766/multiline-strings-in-json) — PhoneixS, May 27 '14 at 07:59

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 27 '14 at 08:09

If you are displaying (or inserting) the json value directly in HTML, you can't use it as it is because in html new lines are ignored and replaced by a space.

For example if you have:

<p>Hello,
I'm in other line.</p>

It will be represented as:

Hello, I'm in other line.

You must convert the new lines to paragraph or <br>, for example:

<p>Hello,<br>
I'm in other line.</p>

That will be show as:

Hello,

I'm in other line

If this is your case, you can simply use String.replace to change \n into <br>\n.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 15 '11 at 01:10

0

If you're displaying it in HTML,
will simple do. Or in a text area or something, try "\r\n", wrapped in double quotes. Double backslashes are to escape.

answered Nov 15 '11 at 01:10

Moe Sweet

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preserving linebreaks in values in JSON key-value pairs

2 Answers2