check whether string contains a line break

Question

So, I have to get HTML of textarea and check whether it contains line break. How can i see whether it contain \n because the string return using val() does not contain \n and i am not able to detect it. I tried using .split("\n") but it gave the same result. How can it be done ?

One minute, IDK why when i add \n to textarea as value, it breaks and move to next line.

You just need to use `.val()` as it's input element. Also take into account line wrapping, which is NOT adding newline characters. — Shadow The GPT Wizard, Feb 28 '13 at 08:49
I didn't understand the downvote... this is a perfectly valid question. — Miguel Angelo, Feb 25 '14 at 20:11
1600 views later, I'm the +1? What's wrong you people? This is a nice question. — , Jun 28 '14 at 06:31

T.J. Crowder · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-28T08:52:57.217

57

Line breaks in HTML aren't represented by \n or \r. They can be represented in lots of ways, including the   element, or any block element following another (, for instance).

If you're using a textarea, you may find \n or \r (or \r\n) for line breaks, so:

var text = $("#theTextArea").val();
var match = /\r|\n/.exec(text);
if (match) {
    // Found one, look at `match` for details, in particular `match.index`
}

Live Example | Source

...but that's just textareas, not HTML elements in general.

edited Feb 28 '13 at 08:52

answered Feb 28 '13 at 08:47

T.J. Crowder

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Is there a way to get the string index of the new line? – Howard Jul 23 '17 at 21:19
1

@rotaercz: Look up `RegExp#exec` and what it returns. – T.J. Crowder Jul 24 '17 at 08:10
1

ECMAScript 2015 version: `myString.includes("\n")` – Franco Roura Jan 29 '21 at 01:58
@FrancoRoura - To look specifically and only for `\n`, yeah. – T.J. Crowder Jan 29 '21 at 07:37

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 28 '13 at 08:49

15

var text = $('#total-number').text();
var eachLine = text.split('\n');
  alert('Lines found: ' + eachLine.length);
  for(var i = 0, l = eachLine.length; i < l; i++) {
      alert('Line ' + (i+1) + ': ' + eachLine[i]);
  }

answered Feb 28 '13 at 08:49

EnterJQ

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score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 30 '23 at 18:06

5

You can simply use this

var numberOfLineBreaks = (enteredText.match(/\n/g)||[]).length;

edited Jan 30 '23 at 18:06

linktoahref

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answered Jan 06 '21 at 12:09

Ajinkya Bodade

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check whether string contains a line break

3 Answers3

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