nl2br and BLOB field of MySQL

It's probably a problem of my code, can anyone help me?
I have a BLOB field in a MySQL table. This field is filled in a php page
with a <textarea>, where I can enter it formatted, with ENTER's to split
some lines from others.
In another page, this field is seen (not updated) - so I don't have a
<textarea> tag.
As I want to see the text exactly as entered, I have put the following code:
$res="<td><font...";
$res.=nl2br($row[blobfield]);
$res.="</font></td>";
echo ($res);
and the result is that I cannot see any part of the blob field.
If I change my code to
$res="<td><font...";
$res.=$row[blobfield];
$res.="</font></td>";
echo ($res);
the complete blob field is seen, yet unformatted.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Jorge


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