JQuery/Coffeescript unescape variable string

Question

So I have this block of jquery inside a coffeescript file;

$("#parser-results").append(
 "<tr><td>" + d.id + "</td>" +
 "<td>" + d.received_at + "</td>" +
 "<td>" + d.from_address + "</td>" +
 "<td>" + d.to_address + "</td>" +
 "<td>" + d.subject_text + "</td></tr>" +
 "<tr><td colspan=5><div class='body-text'>" + d.body_text.replace(/\n/g, "<br />") + "</div></td></tr>"
)

The problem here relates to the variable d.body_text , which is a retrieved TEXT field from a database.

I am trying to replace all instances of \\n with a <br> and I have literally tried every jquery, javascript and coffeescript variation of every approach that I could find on the internet. I've also tried preg_replace and nl2br before the data is entered in the database to no avail.

Also, the data is coming from a mail parsing service called mailparser.io. I doubt it has anything to do with that but I'm really just not sure anymore.

What is missing here? I need some help identifying what the problem could be.

Answer 1

Based on the comments, it seems that someone has converted real newline characters (ie "\\n" in (Coffee|Java)Script) to the two character string '\\\\' + 'n' in your database. That would explain why:

d.body_text.replace(/\n/g, "<br />")

does nothing useful: there are no newlines to replace with <br> s so, well, nothing gets replaced. The solution is to replace what's really there:

d.body_text.replace(/\\n/g, "<br />")
// ------------------^^^ This gives you a literal \n (as two characters)