breaking apart data

HEllo, I have some data stored in a database (mysql) that I need to break apart. When I display it, I use the nl2br function.. works fine... but I want to do some formatting to each line of text and need to break it apart. when I look at the raw data, it has the escape sequence \r\n (return\linfeed) what would be the most efficient way to rework this data in to what I am after.... stored text: asdf asdf sadl jf lsakdjf a \r\n asdfierw aweiufasd asiuwr \r\n asdhfauiweuhrahsd \r\n displays text as: asdf asdf sadl jf lsakdjf a asdfierw aweiufasd asiuwr asdhfauiweuhrahsd I would like to highlight parts of the above. Larry R. Sieting