What is the difference between the template filter: `|linebreaks` and `|linebreaksbr` in Django Template?

Introduction

The Django template filters: linebreaks and linebreaksbr both handle the conversion of line breaks to plain text. Although they behave differently in terms of how the HTML is generated.

1. linebreaks:

• Converts the plain text string into a HTML paragraph <p> when there are no newline characters (\n) found in the plain text.
• Converts the newline character (\n) in a plain text string into HTML <p> (paragraph) and <br> (line break) tags.
• Each block of text separated by two or more newlines becomes a <p> tag, and single newlines within that block are converted to <br> tags.

Example:

{% with text="This is line one.\nThis is line two.\n\nThis is a new paragraph." %}
  {{ text|linebreaks }}
{% endwith %}

Output:

<p>This is line one.<br>This is line two.</p>
<p>This is a new paragraph.</p>

2. linebreaksbr:

• Converts every newline (\n) into an HTML <br> tag, without creating paragraphs (<p>). And keeping all text in the same flow but respecting line breaks.

Example:

{% with text="This is line one.\nThis is line two.\n\nThis is a new paragraph." %}
  {{ text|linebreaksbr }}
{% endwith %}

Output:

This is line one.<br>This is line two.<br><br>This is a new paragraph.

Summary:

Use linebreaks when you want paragraphs and linebreaksbr when you want simple line breaks without creating paragraphs. As simple as that!