string interpolation - PHP - how to create a newline character?

Question

In PHP I am trying to create a newline character:

echo $clientid;
echo ' ';
echo $lastname;
echo ' ';
echo '
';

Afterwards I open the created file in Notepad and it writes the newline literally:

1 John Doe 1 John Doe 1 John Doe

I have tried many variations of the , but none work. Why isn't the newline turning into a newline?

Answer 1

Only double quoted strings interpret the escape sequences and as '0x0D' and '0x0A' respectively, so you want:

"
"

Single quoted strings, on the other hand, only know the escape sequences \ and '.

So unless you concatenate the single quoted string with a line break generated elsewhere (e. g., using double quoted string " " or using chr function chr(0x0D).chr(0x0A)), the only other way to have a line break within a single quoted string is to literally type it with your editor:

$s = 'some text before the line break
some text after';

Make sure to check your editor for its line break settings if you require some specific character sequence ( for example).