If you are using addcslashes() to encode text which is to later be decoded back to it's original form, you MUST specify the backslash (\) character in charlist!

Example:

<?php
  $originaltext = 'This text does NOT contain \\n a new-line!';
  $encoded = addcslashes($originaltext, '\\');
  $decoded = stripcslashes($encoded);
  //$decoded now contains a copy of $originaltext with perfect integrity
  echo $decoded; //Display the sentence with it's literal \n intact
?>

If the '\\' was not specified in addcslashes(), any literal \n (or other C-style special character) sequences in $originaltext would pass through un-encoded, but then be decoded into control characters by stripcslashes() and the data would lose it's integrity through the encode-decode transaction.