how to get newline in a text box

Hi,
plz ignore the error in subject. i need new line in text area.
I am designing a JSP in which i have to display a field taken from oracle DB table in a text area.. field is first selected from oracle thru C++ and passed to jsp in a variable as one long string. the problem is while inserting into the table, line-break/newline are replaced by | symbols and inserted. while getting back the value for display, i want newlines to be displayed instead of | symbols. i tried replacing | by \n in C and passed to jsp, but in the text area, its printing \n instead of new lines.

How to achieve this, experts plzzz advice..
actual string

formatted o/p

can you use the <br /> tag or wrap it in <pre></pre>?

the tags work in html area.. in text area, its printing everything as it is.. its printing

as

<br>

and

as
.
the problem is i get the whole message as 1 complete string, if br or sum tag works, i can append it to the string that is passed from backend.