php - How to use nl2br() to handle string with ' '?

Question

I am retrieving a product description value stored in database from admin through textarea upon form submit. When I select the description from database I get $description = $row['description']; and I would like to echo $description on main page like this: echo nl2br($description); but I see " " characters instead of making new rows. From what I've found here and on the net, your string must be used between double quotes, like this:

echo nl2br("Hello, 
 This is the description");

Now, the value of $description from database is in fact "Hello, This is the description" but in my script I have to use it like this:

echo nl2br($description);

Which does not make br's, it is outputing instead. So, what can I do, I can't use double quotes here, from my experience.

Answer 1

You could translate them into their respective escape sequences before passing the string through nl2br(), like this:

$description = nl2br(str_replace('\r\n', "
", $description));

But what are the literal escapes doing in your database in the first place?