title: Converting <br /> into a new line for use in a text area
body: <p>If I have a variable:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$var1 = "Line 1 info blah blah &lt;br /&gt; Line 2 info blah blah";
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And a text area:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;textarea&gt;echo $var1&lt;/textarea&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I get the text area to display a new line instead of displaying the text on a single like with a <code>&lt;br /&gt;</code> in it?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong> I have tried the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;textarea class="hobbieTalk" id="hobbieTalk" name="hobbieTalk" cols="35" rows="5" onchange="contentHandler('userInterests',this.id,this.value,0)"&gt;&lt;?php
  
  $convert=$_SESSION["hobbieTalk"];
  $convert = str_replace("&lt;br /&gt;", "\n", $convert);
  echo $convert;
  
  ?&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However the text area still contains the <code>br</code> tags in the lines.</p>