Displaying line breaks & paragraphs using 'simple_format'?

Rails
1

Hi there,

I need to:

  1. STORE a text of the below format in a (MySQL) database (using a
    ‘textarea’), and then
  2. RETRIEVE & DISPLAY it in exactly the same format (meaning: keeping
    all paragraphs/line breaks).

The intended text format looks like this:

Blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah
blahblah blah blah blahblah blah, blah
blahblah. ← NEW PARAGRAPH

Blah blahblah blah blah. ← LINE BREAK
Blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah
blahblah blah blah blahblah blah, blah
blahblah.

Until now:

  • the text is stored in exactly this format in a ‘text’ field in the
    database (which I believe is the correct way to do it)
  • I have used ‘simple_format’
    (ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper)
    for displaying

The problem is: LINE BREAKS are displayed correctly, but NOT the
PARAGRAPHS (they appear like simple line breaks).

What am I doing wrong ?!

Thanks a bunch for any hints and help !
Tom

2

Hey Tom-

sadly I noticed this same issue with simple_format

I get around it by adding a model method to whatever the class is with
the text.
For example, if I have pages, and each page has a body, I’ll add a
method like so:

class Page
def format_breaks
body.gsub("\n", “
”)
end
end

and then call @page.body.format_breaks in the view.

This might lead to performance issues if you have an awful lot of text
though so it might be more efficient to create an after_save callback
instead.

Something like:

class Page
after_save :format_breaks
def format_breaks
update_attribute :body, body.gsub("\n", “
”)
end
end

This will update the entry in the database after you save so all you
have to call in the view is <%= @page.body %>

Note - to keep your XHTML valid, you’ll need to wrap the whole thing
in paragraph tags (I believe?)

<%= @page.body %>

Hope that helps?

3

Thanks, Gavin! That definitely helps…