Newline character “\n” problems in a Javascript string + PHP

I have just spent an hour an a half trying to figure out why the newline character “\n” caused an error in my Javascript. I am posting this because I have been unsuccessful in finding a solution to this problem.

I am basically trying to display a newline character inside a textbox.

<?php
$var = "This is the first line. \n This is the second line.";
?>
 
<textarea id="mytext"></textarea>
 
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    $(document).ready( function () {
        $('#mytime').val('<?=$var?>')
    });
</script>

The error I get above is:

unterminated string literal

When I view the source code, I have this:

$('#mytime').val('This is the first line.
This is the second line.');

Using str_replace() to remove the “\n”
Apparently, this does not work.

$temp = str_replace("\n","",$var); //does not work

Has anyone experienced this issue?

Thanks,
Wenbert

UPDATE:
I found this in Stackoverflow.

The solution, use json_encode().

<?php
$var = "This is the first line. \n This is the second line.";
?>
 
<textarea id="mytext"></textarea>
 
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    $(document).ready( function () {
        $('#mytime').val('<?=json_encode($var)?>')
    });
</script>

There. Who would have thought of that?

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