variables rendering in IE textarea takes out the formatting

Question

I have a textarea that receives a variable via php

  $boring = str_ireplace($boringa, "\r\n", $boring);

That variable is then chaged via js

 $(document).ready(function(){
    $("a.clickable").click(function(event){
        event.preventDefault();
        $("textarea#messageforfriends").val($(this).html());
    });  
});

So the textarea receives the new variable fine in everything but IE (of course) the br tags are being taken out?

Answer 1

There are differences in the way IE handles linebreaks in textareas. Here are a couple of earlier posts you may find helpful.

• jQuery textarea append newline behavior
• Textarea doesn't show newline in IE (an ASP question but it contains some useful points)

Answer 2

Usually IE ignores the type of (repeated)whitespaces and internally replaces them with a single space (%20). This happens in most of elements(because the whitespaces make no sense there for the rendering), except <pre> and <textarea> .

So if it is an option, use a <pre/>-element instead of an <a/>