PHP adding in a line break to echo statement

Question

Hi,

I'm building a Google Map for a WordPress site and I need to allow the client to alter the markers and info windows that are placed onto the map dynamically within WordPress. Hard-coded everything was working fine, but the PHP I wrote to drag out the locations from WordPress and output them into a JavaScript Variable in a script tag isn't working. Having looked into it I can see that a line break is being added at the end of the 'description' field before the final closing quotation marks.

Anyone got any ideas why this might happen?

I've tried taking out all whitespace from the statements but that doesn't seem to work.

The page.php file:

<script type="text/javascript">
var markers = [
    <?php $args = array('post_type' => 'markers');
                    $the_query = new WP_Query( $args );?>
    <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
    <?php get_template_part('content', 'markers'); ?>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
];

</script>

Then the content-markers.php file:

<?php echo 
'{"title": "';?><?php the_field('title');?>
<?php echo '","lat": ';?><?php the_field('lat');?>
<?php echo ',"lng": ';?><?php the_field('lng');?>
<?php echo ',"description": "';?><?php trim(the_field('description'));?>
<?php echo '"},';

Your help is appreciated!

Answer 1 · 2014-03-18T03:47:32Z

March 18, 2014 3:47am

As an alternative, and better practice, you may want to look at using the json_encode function. It will take an associative array and make the JSON for you. It's much less error prone that way. You would so something like this:

<?php
$data = array('title'=>the_field('title'),
    'lat'=>the_field('lat'),
    'lng'=>the_field('lng'),
    'description'=>the_field('description'));
echo json_encode($data);

Answer 2 · 2014-03-18T03:16:17Z

March 18, 2014 3:16am

When you put that last line in your content-markers.php file on a newline after the ?> tag, it will print the newline. Basically, anything outside the <?php ?> tags will print as you write it. For better readability, and to fix the problem, you might want to do something like this:

<?php
echo '{"title": "'.the_field('title').'",
"lat": '.the_field('lat').',
"lng": '.the_field('lng').',
"description": "'.trim(the_field('description')).'"},';

Answer 3 · 2014-03-18T03:44:36Z

March 18, 2014 3:44am

Thanks for the quick response, Brian.

I tried something like that earlier but abandoned the idea because the output I get is really strange - it prints the contents of the fields first and then the concatenated strings afterwards like this:

<script type="text/javascript">
var markers = [
                        Bondi Beach-33.890542151.274856<p>Bondi Beach is a popular beach and the name of the surrounding suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Bondi Beach is located 7 km (4 mi) east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Waverley Council, in the Eastern Suburbs. Bondi, North Bondi and Bondi Junction are neighbouring suburbs.</p>

{"title": "","lat": ,"lng": ,"description": ""},

];

</script>

I never encountered this before, do you know why it would do that?

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Andrew Foster

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PHP adding in a line break to echo statement

3 Answers

Brian Herbert

Brian Herbert

Andrew Foster

Andrew Foster

Brian Herbert

Brian Herbert

Andrew Foster

Andrew Foster