\n is the correct operator, so please post your code here, using the "code" tags, so we can help you.

Generally, it's always best to include the offending chunk of code with your question for that straight-off-the-bat response.

Azatoth a.k.a Captain Whiplash

okay, first I put the text block from a database into a text file (requests.txt) and replace the html break tags with '\n'




cat $HOME/housekeeping/requests.txt | sed -e 's/<br>/\\n/g' -e s/\&#39
+\;/\'/g > $HOME/housekeeping/requests2.txt
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this gives me a text file containing for example:

Date : 2001-09-26 10:47:00
Request No. 107
Request Title: CHILDREN
Request : 1. 13 year old twin boys\n2. A boy aged 13 years old standing facing the camera\n3. A girl aged 13 years old standing facing the camera\n4. A girl & a boy aged approx 13 years old standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Paris\n5. A girl aged approx 11 years old on a beach in Greece(or could be anot her location as long as it is not too exotic)
Format :
Deadline : 2001-9-27
Budget : £85 per pic used
Name : Louise Edgeworth
Company : Pearson Education
Country : United Kingdom
Telephone : 01279 793472
Fax : 01279 793472
Email : edgeworthl@aol.com

Then I run the perl script and use this code to format the email:



    open(REQUESTS,"/home/picturesea/housekeeping/requests3.txt") || di
+e "requests3 file not found";
 
    # Open The Mail Program
    open(MAIL,"|$mailprog -t");

    print MAIL "Bcc: $emails\n";
    print MAIL "From: chrisbarton\@postmaster.co.uk (PICTURE SEARCH)\n
+";
    print MAIL "Subject: PICTURE SEARCH REQUESTS $date\n\n";

    print MAIL "If you think you have suitable images, please CONTACT 
+THE RESEARCHER DIRECT.\n YOU DO NOT NEED TO REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.\n";
 print MAIL "$date\n";
    print MAIL "-" x 75 . "\n";
    while ($requests = <REQUESTS>) {
        print MAIL "$requests";
    }
    close(REQUESTS);
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this all works fine and the email is formatted fine, except the request text comes out:

Request : 1. 13 year old twin boys\n2. A boy aged 13 years old standing facing the camera\n3. A girl aged 13 years old standing facing the camera\n4. A girl & a boy aged approx 13 years old standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Paris\n5. A girl aged approx 11 years old on a beach in Greece(or could be anot her location as long as it is not too exotic)

when what I want is:

Request : 1. 13 year old twin boys
2. A boy aged 13 years old standing facing the camera
3. A girl aged 13 years old standing facing the camera
4. A girl & a boy aged approx 13 years old standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Paris
5. A girl aged approx 11 years old on a beach in Greece(or could be another location as long as it is not too exotic

ie the '\n's don't get translated as line breaks - any idea why this is?

The problem comes from the sed command. As I'm no sed expert give perl a try:

perl -pe "s/<br>/\n/g; s/\&#39;/'/g;"
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alex pleiner <alex@zeitform.de>
zeitform Internet Dienste

Guys, It was very difficult to figure how we can break the line text email. I have found a very simple solution just "break the line in your code" and it will do the same in the email as well. eg: I have done this in PHP ------------------------ message ="Hello World Now this is my next line message"; Message .= "Dear".$var.", again this next lien message" --------------------------- Thats it and it works fine with me.. Cheers, Azim

$text = "How are you";
$break ='\n';
$text =~ s/\s/$break/g;
print $text;
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How\nare\nyou
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$text = "How are you";
$break ="\n";
$text =~ s/\s/$break/g;
print $text;
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How
are
you
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As projek21 pointed out, your problem is definetly with the sed command. Sed, from a perl perspective, always had strange semantics when it comes to patterns. Sed will not convert the two characters "\n" into the one character newline. Now there are ways around this limitation. One is to embed an actual newline like so:

shell prompt$ sed -e 's/<br>/\
            > /g' < file.txt > file.out
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But that's kinda wacky. You could also place your sed patterns in a file and use the -f option of sed:

file sedpat contains:

s/<br>/\
/g
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while (<REQUESTS>) {
     s/<br>/\n/g;
     s/\&#39;/'/g;
     print MAIL;
}
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