How can PHP developers efficiently convert newline characters in database fields to list items without using regular expressions?

To efficiently convert newline characters in database fields to list items without using regular expressions, PHP developers can use the explode function to split the field value by the newline character (\n) and then iterate over the resulting array to create a list of items. This approach is simple, efficient, and does not require the complexity of regular expressions.

// Assuming $dbField contains the field value with newline characters
$listItems = explode("\n", $dbField);
echo '<ul>';
foreach ($listItems as $item) {
    echo '<li>' . $item . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';