string formatting help

I'm trying to pull a string from a database to use in a javascript function.. but it's doing line breaks on me, which in turn messes up the javascript. The string in the mysql db is like: kjdsakjadk<br>skjdks<br><br>kjkdfjdfkjfd When I pull it out, it becomes: kjdsakjadk <br> skjdks <br> <br> kjkdfjdfkjfd I've tried replacing the br's with blank spaces or new line characters, but in the html code it still breaks on those breaks when I echo it back out. How can I force this string to be all on one line? Thanks, Chad