Problem with displaying formatted text.

[jeddiki]

I use a form to write an article and then save it into the mysql table.

I use this to save it:

$Db_profile = safe_sql($_POST['x_profile']);

and the function safe_sql is:

// Make variable SQL safe
function safe_sql( $value )
{
     $value = strip_tags(trim($value));
		 
    // Stripslashes
    if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
        $value = stripslashes($value);
    }
    // Quote if not integer
    if (!is_numeric($value)) {
        $value = mysql_real_escape_string($value);
    }
    return $value;
} // End of Function

I save it with a normal insert:

$sql = "UPDATE clients SET 
		 profile   = '$Db_profile',
		 last_date = '$today'

		 WHERE user_id = \"{$_SESSION['expert']}\" ";
	
		 mysql_query($sql) or die("could not execute PROFILE update query". mysql_error());

When I come to display the article all the sentences just get pushed together,the line breaks have al gone.

I use this to display it:

<div class="hot04">
 <p><?php echo "$profile"; ?></p>
</div> <!-- End div:hot04 -->

The strange thing is, when I look at the table data it still contains the line breaks so it must be my display method that is causing the problem.

What am I doing wrong ?

[Markus]

HTML won't take a newline character (\n) and create a new line with it - it will in the source code, but not the live code. You need to convert these into a html tag (<br />). Luckily, there is a standard PHP function that does this for you (nl2br()). Just simply use this function on your output.

$text = "These\n will\n appear\n on\n new\n lines";

echo nl2br($text);

[jeddiki]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks,

So I can just do:

<p><?php echo "nl2br($profile )"; ?></p>

or maybe a 2 step would be better

$Sh_profile = nl2br($profile) ;

later
<p><?php echo "$Sh_profil e"; ?></p>

Do I need the double quotes ?
( I am never quite sure )

[Dormilich]

the first code won't work because of the quotation marks (PHP doesn't look for functions in a string)
in the third code you can omit the quotation marks, because all you want to print is the variable.

which of the two ways you implement depends on your personal liking.

Do I need the double quotes ? (I am never quite sure )

If you're not sure about something, refer to the PHP manual, it usually gives good explanation and plenty of examples.
PHP: echo - Manual

[Markus]

Markus (with a K) ;]

Double quotes: functions will not be parsed inside them, variables, however, will be parsed.

So, the second option you show will work.

[Dormilich]

note:

echo myFunction();

only works, if the function has a (printable) return value.

[jeddiki]

Thanks for your help,

So it seems that the textarea and the mysql dtatbase both like
the line break /n/r style and will record them invisibly,
but the HTML page needs to have these output converted <br> or <br />

One more this that is confusing me.
When using the texarea to write an article how can I add bold
and italics so that they will save in the database and then
display correctly when I output them to an HTML page ?

[Dormilich]

When using the texarea to write an article how can I add bold and italics so that they will save in the database and then display correctly when I output them to an HTML page ?

probably the best is to add some tags, that will be converted to the appropriate HTML tags (be it <span>, <b> or <i>). make sure you sanitize your input before putting it to DB or the HTML page.

[Markus]

One more this that is confusing me.
When using the texarea to write an article how can I add bold
and italics so that they will save in the database and then
display correctly when I output them to an HTML page ?

Check out BBCode.

[Dormilich]

Check out BBCode.

note: PHP provides an extension to parse BBCode.

[jeddiki]

Thanks, I am checking out how I can get the bbCode extension for my server.

Looks like what I need :)