[javascript] JavaScript replace \n with <br />

var messagetoSend = $.trim(document.getElementById("msgText").value);
messagetoSend = messagetoSend.replace("\n", "<br />");
alert(messagetoSend);

Given input:

Line 1


Line 2




Line 3

This alerts:

Line 1<br />


Line 2




Line 3

When I expect it to alert:

Line 1<br /><br /><br />Line 2<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Line 3

Handles either type of line break

str.replace(new RegExp('\r?\n','g'), '<br />');

Use a regular expression for .replace().:

messagetoSend = messagetoSend.replace(/\n/g, "<br />");

If those linebreaks were made by windows-encoding, you will also have to replace the carriage return.

messagetoSend = messagetoSend.replace(/\r\n/g, "<br />");