<textarea> function to replace Returns and Spaces

[FunkHouse9]

I'm working on a form to collect data in a textarea which and am trying to keep returns and spaces. I have a couple of functions that I Frankensteined together to replace returns with <br> and to replace spaces with &nbsp;. The <br> part works well enough, but I keep getting "%20" instead of "&nbsp;" for the spaces.

I understand that escape() changes " " to "%20", but I would think the ConvertSpaces function below would change the %20 to &nbsp;, but it doesn't. (FYI, I need &nbsp; instead of %20 because it appears to be the only "space" code that the resulting shopping cart page will accept for multiple sequential spaces.)

I know there's lots about this on the web, but apparently I'm too unskilled to understand anything I'm finding.

<input onclick="Conver tCarriageReturn s(this.form.op3 1,'&lt;br&gt;') " type="image" name="add" /></form>

function ConvertCarriage Returns(textare a, strReplace)
{
textarea.value = escape(textarea .value)
for(i=0;i<texta rea.value.lengt h;i++)
{
if(textarea.val ue.indexOf("%0D %0A") > -1 )
{
textarea.value = textarea.value. replace("%0D%0A ",strReplac e)
}
}
ConvertSpaces(u nescape(textare a.value),'&nbsp ;')
}


function ConvertSpaces(t extarea, strReplace)
{
textarea.value = escape(textarea .value)
for(i=0;i<texta rea.value.lengt h;i++)
{
if(textarea.val ue.indexOf(" ") > -1 )
{
textarea.value = textarea.value. replace(" ",strReplac e)
}
}
textarea.value = unescape(textar ea.value)
}

[iam_clint]

i believe you have to replace " " in your serverside code... because it will escape it to %20 also i think.

[FunkHouse9]

Rrrggh. I was really hoping you were going to tell me I missed a semicolon or something easy like that. This is reaching beyond my realm of personal ability now.

[pbmods]

[CODE=javascript]for(i=0;i<texta rea.value.lengt h;i++)
{
if(textarea.val ue.indexOf(" ") > -1 )
{
textarea.value = textarea.value. replace(" ",strReplac e)
}
}
textarea.value = unescape(textar ea.value)[/code]

This might not work properly, especially if, for example, two spaces are next to each other and strReplace is null.

Try this instead:

[code=javascript]
if(String(strRe place).indexOf( ' ') > -1) {
alert('strRepla ce contains a space!\n"' + strReplace + '");
return false;
}

textarea.value = textarea.value. replace(/ /g, strReplace);
[/code]

If you don't want to use regular expressions, you could just use the code you had, but without the for loop:
[code=javascript]
while(textarea. value.indexOf(' ') > -1)
textarea.value = textarea.value. replace(' ', strReplace);
[/code]