How do I display paragraphs in mysql?

Question

Ok, so I have a database and am populating a table. I connect and populate with no problem with $sqlCommand via a php page.

my problem is one of my fields has blocks/paragraphs of content. I need paragraphs to show, but nl2br() isn't work.

Here's how I populate (site.com/xtblcreate.php):

// Create table1 in db x for storing words
 $sqlCommand = "CREATE TABLE table1 (
           id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
           a TEXT,
           b TEXT,
           c TEXT,
           d TEXT,
   page_views INT NOT NULL default '0',
           FULLTEXT (a,b,c,d)
           ) ENGINE=MyISAM";
  $query = mysql_query($sqlCommand) or die(mysql_error());
  echo "<h3>Success creating table1 in db x</h3>";

   // Insert dummy data into the table1 in db x
   $sqlCommand = "INSERT INTO table1 (a,b,c,d) VALUES
          ('something', 'something else', 'a lot \n of info', 'quick conclusion' )"; 

What I need is " a lot of info" to be broken as like two paragraphs.

Then the query on its own php page ( site.com/x.php):

 $search_output .= "$count result(s) for <strong>$searchquery</strong><br />";
 while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
        $id = $row["id"];
        $a = $row["a"];
        $b = $row["b"];
        $c = $row["c"];
        $d = $row["d"];

    $search_output .= "*<br>$a- <br/><b>c: </b>$c<br /> <br /> b: $b<br />finally, d:      $d<br/>";  
echo nl2br($c);
  //output $c with paragraphs

please go easy on me as I'm new at this.

Answer 1

Escape sequences such as \n aren't processed when using single quotes in PHP.

If you changed your query to:

$sqlCommand = "INSERT INTO table1 (a,b,c,d) VALUES
      ('something', 'something else', \"a lot \n of info\", 'quick conclusion' )"; 

Then I suspect nl2br() will yield your desired output.