How to get data from a text area
<?php
// The HTML
?>
<textarea name="comment" rows="4" cols="50">Some text comments</textarea>
<?php
// the PHP
$comment = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'comment') ;
// PHP that converts line break characters to HTML line break tags
$comment = nl2br($comment, false) ; // use <br> tags, not <br />
?>