How to display multiple lines of text in SVG?

Question

Is it possible to display multiple lines of text in SVG without using the dy property? I'm using SVG 1.1 but might be able to use 1.2.

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
     xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <text x="0" y="15" font-size="15">
    <tspan>tspan line 1</tspan>
    <tspan>tspan line 2</tspan>
    <tspan>tspan line 3</tspan>
  </text>
</svg>

I've typed the code above. I want the text all flush to the left and each tspan to be a new line. Is tspan the only tag I can use? I want SVG to position the text lines vertically with line breaks. I do not want to manually enter the dy.

According to what I've read, each line should appear below the other. They are but they are also staggered across.

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
     xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <text x="0" y="0" font-size="15">
    <tspan dy="15">tspan line 1</tspan>
    <tspan dy="15">tspan line 2</tspan>
    <tspan dy="15">tspan line 3</tspan>
  </text>
</svg>

I guess it is required to add the x property. If you are setting the dy property to a fixed value, what happens when you change the font size?

This is working better than what I started with:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
     xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
     xml:space="preserve">
  <text x="0" y="0" font-size="15" font-family="courier new" dy="0">
    <tspan x="0" dy="15">tspan line 1</tspan>
    <tspan x="0" dy="15">tspan line 2</tspan>
    <tspan x="0" dy="15">tspan line 3</tspan>
  </text>
</svg>

Is there a way to apply the x and dy to all the tspans? Maybe a property like line-height on the text element?

It doesn't look like the text tag has a property to set the delta y. It has been suggested in the comments to use JQuery to set the x attribute of all tspans. It looks like the dy property can accept other types of values such as points and percentages!? Is there a way to set the dy to a value that is 120% of the font size of its parent text element? I've tried to set it to 120%, but it doesn't seem to work like I expect. When I set 120% in the dy property, it goes off the screen. When I set it to 12 or 12px it stays in the same position. If I set it to 12%, it shifts slightly but is not 120% or 12px.

http://codepen.io/anon/pen/PqBRmd

It looks like it can accept any of the following:
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/types.html#InterfaceSVGLength

I've also looked up acceptable value types for dy and dx, and I can't make sense of it http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/text.html#TSpanElementDXAttribute.

UPDATE 4:
Thanks for the answers so far. It looks like there is a way to display multiple lines of text spaced apart relatively. See my answer below.

Answer 1

It looks like this will space the lines one after another without hard-coding a font size in each tspan. Font at 15px:

<svg style="border:1px solid black" >
    <text x="0" y="0" font-size="15" dy="0">
        <tspan x="0" dy=".6em">tspan line 1</tspan>
        <tspan x="0" dy="1.2em">tspan line 2</tspan>
        <tspan x="0" dy="1.2em">tspan line 3</tspan>
    </text>
</svg>

If you change the font size the lines continue to be spaced at 120% apart from each other or 1.2em. Font at 20px:

<svg style="border:1px solid black" >
    <text x="0" y="0" font-size="20" dy="0">
        <tspan x="0" dy=".6em">tspan line 1</tspan>
        <tspan x="0" dy="1.2em">tspan line 2</tspan>
        <tspan x="0" dy="1.2em">tspan line 3</tspan>
    </text>
</svg>

Example - http://codepen.io/anon/pen/oXMVqo

Answer 2

tspan is the right way to do it. And this is how:

<tspan x="10" dy="15">tspan line 1</tspan>

reference: http://tutorials.jenkov.com/svg/tspan-element.html

Answer 3

just calculate the heights:

var drawx=part.x||0;
var drawy=part.y||0;
var fontSize=part.fontSize||14; 
var lineHeight=part.lineHeight||1.25; 
var style=part.style||""; 
var fontFamily=part.fontFamily||"Arial"; 
var text=part.text.split('\n').map(function(a,i){ return '<tspan x="'+drawx+'" y="'+(drawy+fontSize*lineHeight+i*fontSize*lineHeight)+'">'+a+'</tspan>' }).join('\n');

tqrSvg+='<text x="'+drawx+'" y="'+drawy+'" style="'+style+'" font-family="'+fontFamily+'" font-size="'+fontSize+'">'+text+'</text>'