Problem when retrieving text in JSON format containing line breaks with jQuery

If you would like to keep the line breaks, you might try:

function parse($text) {    // Damn pesky carriage returns...    $text = str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $text);    $text = str_replace("\r", "\n", $text);    // JSON requires new line characters be escaped    $text = str_replace("\n", "\\n", $text);    return $text;}

Line breaks aren't the issue so much as they need to be properly escaped in JSON. If it's available to you, you can use json_encode which automatically escapes newlines. Failing that, you can use something like Pim Jager's method above, though a proper JSON encoder would be best.

I encountered that problem while making a class in PHP4 to emulate json_encode (available in PHP5). Here's what i came up with :

class jsonResponse {    var $response;    function jsonResponse() {        $this->response = array('isOK'=>'KO','msg'=>'Undefined');    }    function set($isOK, $msg) {        $this->response['isOK'] = ($isOK) ? 'OK' : 'KO';        $this->response['msg'] = htmlentities($msg);    }    function setData($data=null) {        if(!is_null($data))            $this->response['data'] = $data;        elseif(isset($this->response['data']))            unset($this->response['data']);    }    function send() {        header('Content-type: application/json');        echo '{"isOK":"'.$this->response['isOK'].'","msg":'.$this->parseString($this->response['msg']);        if(isset($this->response['data']))            echo ',"data":'.$this->parseData($this->response['data']);        echo '}';    }    function parseData($data) {        if(is_array($data)) {            $parsed = array();            foreach ($data as $key=>$value)                array_push($parsed, $this->parseString($key).':'.$this->parseData($value));            return '{'.implode(',', $parsed).'}';        } else            return $this->parseString($data);    }    function parseString($string) {            $string = str_replace("\\", "\\\\", $string);            $string = str_replace('/', "\\/", $string);            $string = str_replace('"', "\\".'"', $string);            $string = str_replace("\b", "\\b", $string);            $string = str_replace("\t", "\\t", $string);            $string = str_replace("\n", "\\n", $string);            $string = str_replace("\f", "\\f", $string);            $string = str_replace("\r", "\\r", $string);            $string = str_replace("\u", "\\u", $string);            return '"'.$string.'"';    }}

I followed the rules mentionned here.I only used what i needed but i figure that you can adapt it to your needs in the language your are using. The problem in my case wasn't about newlines as i originally thought but about the / not being escaped. I hope this prevent someone else from the little headache i had figuring out what i did wrong.