[SOLVED] Help with textarea and mysql

[Lautarox]

Hi everyone, i'm having a problem, im coding a blog, and when do and when i insert the what is written in the text area, the "new lines" (what i mean is when you press enter) aren't there, all the text is in the same line, the type of data in the mysql is text.

And i have another question too, how can i add a limit to the textarea, that when y pass the size it continues writting in a new line?

Thanks

[lemmin]

They probably aren't actually new lines but just word wrapping in the textarea. Of course, your next question would make me think you don't even have it wordwrapping. The textarea object should have wordwrapping on by default, but to turn it off you can set the wrap property to "off" http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms535904(VS.85).aspx

[wrathican]

or you can use the nl2br() function.

 

it converts the 'new lines' in a text area/php posted string in line breks so they can be displayed in html

[chronister]

I have found that it is easier to get in the habit of running any textarea input through nl2br() before inserting in the DB. Then when you bring it out of the database, you can run a br2nl() if you need to, which don't exist in PHP, but can be created easily enough.

<?php 

function br2nl($string)
{
$newString = str_replace('<br>', ' ',$string);
return $newString;
}

?>

 

 

I just remembered where the br2nl gets used the most for me .... if this is a textarea that will be populated with data from the DB to edit it, if you don't take out the

<br>

tags, you will end up with new lines getting added to the br lines when you reinsert it in the db.

 

Nate

 

 

 

 

[Lautarox]

The problem is that i don't have the

<br>

tags in the post, it is supposed to save the new line as it is in the textarea to the database.., and what is wrap supposed to do?

[wrathican]

you dont need to have a <br /> in the text area.

 

when you type something in a textarea and press enter/return to put text onto a new line, the browser/parser/whatever adds a new line 'character' in the position of where enter was pressed. the nl2br function simply replaces the new line 'characters' with an xhtml standards compliant line break.

 

search for it in the manual

[mbeals]

when you enter text in a text box, new lines are indicated with a new line character, which is represented by a "\n".  Unless you escape these characters, you will never see them.  When you submit that text box, and new line's (where the user hits the enter button to start a new line) will be marked with a \n (that you cannot see).  This character will be written to the database.

 

If you were to read that text from the database into another text box, all would be fine and the format would be preserved.  However, HTML does not recognize the \n or any other text formatting characters, so if you want to display the text with the same formatting, you need to pass it through the nl2br() function which will tack on a <br /> to every \n, thus making it show up in HTML.

 

[word] wrap is what happens when you type longer then box is wide.  If you have a box that is 100 chars wide and you type 200 chars without hitting enter, the box will automatically drop the text to the new line to make it fit.  HOWEVER, no line break (\n) is inserted in the text.  So when this text is stored in the db, it is exactly how you typed it.

 

I like to leave my database data as raw as possible.  I never know how I'm going to need to format it in the future, so I let it exist in the state it was entered.

 

So here is my suggestion.

 

insert the text from the text box as is into the database (escaped and sanitized of course).  When you need to display it, use nl2br() and traditional CSS techniques to format it to your needs.

 

IE:

 

my string is typed in a form like:

 

Hello World

How are you

 

$string = "Hello World\nHow are you";

That is how it looks to mysql and php.

 

Display as html

<div class=blog_entry>
  <?=nl2br($string);?>
</div>

All my formatting is handled by the CSS and 'normal' html elements.

 

Display in a text box

<textarea name="blogentry">
<?=$string?>
</textarea>

In a text box, the string is treated as raw text, so special chars are recognized.  I don't need to convert my \n's.

 

[Lautarox]

Ohh thanks, now i realise =P

Thanks to all