Htmlentities and Newlines?

Perhaps I don't understand the use of 'htmlentities' too well, but I would like newlines to be retained/inserted into a db, and then if displayed, to produce a new line from a textarea. However, I want the possibility of dangerous html excluded (hence the use of 'htmlentities'). Is there some way of excluding '\n \r ' and other newline indicators from 'htmlentities()'? Perhaps a combination of preg_match and something else? I'm a bit brained-fried struggling with other errant parts of this code since 6 am. Any ideas how I could proceed? The code far: <?php . . . /* Verification script. Adds sponsor's name, city, prov, country and current date at end of 'request' string */ . . . $request = $_POST['request']; $request = ucfirst($request); $html = htmlentities($request); ^^^ /* $html defuses all newlines . . . sigh */ $title = $_POST['title']; $title = ucfirst($title); $title = htmlentities($title); $date = date('Y-m-d'); $preview = "{$_SESSION['title']}<br><br><br>$html<br><br><br>{$_SESSION['sfname']} {$_SESSION['ssname']}<br>{$_SESSION['scity']}, {$_SESSION['rprov']} {$_SESSION['scountry']}<br>$date";; print "<h2>Preview of Request from {$_SESSION['sfname']}{$_SESSION['ssname']}</h2><br><br>"; . . . ?> Any ideas or advice will be most gratefully accepted. Tia, Andre