How can i make sure a php to js string won't break

Question

I am writing a webpage that involves using a php array of strings to output a js array as follows

while($main2row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$tSummary[$main2row['id']] = '"'.$main2row['content'].'"';

    $tTitle[$main2row['id']] = '"'.$main2row['title'].'"';

}

//the above gets the php from the sql database, then stores it in an array, both are string arrays

foreach ( $tSummary as $key => $val) 
{

echo "summArray['".$key."'] = ".nl2br($val).";\n"; 

} 

foreach ( $tTitle as $key => $val) 

{ 

echo "titleArray['".$key."'] = ".nl2br($val).";\n"; 

} 
//these foreach loops will print in a js script and will store the php arrays as js arrays

I know I should probably be using json but this is the way it was set up for me by someone else and I feel like I should adhere to their code.

The PROBLEM is that when the data is stored, it fails in the following way:

summArray['225594172793552897'] = "      blah blah blah blah blah - blah.<br />
<br />
       blah blah blah blah.....";  /* this one is messed up */

summArray['225595300046307328'] = "text text text text text text text text text text text text text text ."; /* this one is fine */

I notice that the string breaks wherever there is a line break so i tried to use nl2br but, while that added a br tag, it did not remove the line break. is there any way I can get rid of this line break?

Answer 1

Instead of nl2br($val), try str_replace("\n", "\\n", $val) to get newlines in JavaScript, or str_replace("\n", "\\n", nl2br($val)) to get HTML linebreaks as well.