[SOLVED] recognize spaces

[dadamssg]

how do i get php/mysql to recognize spaces?..i put the data im storing through a clean and trim function and then output it with nb2lr and stripslashes, but it will only recognize one space...ex.

 

i can type "blah blah b          blah"

 

and it will output

 

"blah blah b blah"

[PFMaBiSmAd]

That's because in HTML multiple spaces are reduced to a single space. You would need to use a non-breaking-space - http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_entities.asp

[dadamssg]

so should i use something like substr_replace() and replace all " " with &nbsp? would that be the best way to go about doing that?

[.josh]

or wrap it in a pre tag.  or a nobr tag.  or with css: white-space: nowrap;

[dadamssg]

will something like that still recognize if the user presses enter to get a line break?

[.josh]

I know for sure the pre tag recognizes line breaks.  Not 100% about nobr or the css, but I think they just stop whitespace and hyphens from being eligible for line breaks (so in other words, a \n should be recognized). 

 

Just to note: the nobr is netscape proprietary and not an official tag, though most browsers seem to support it (even IE).  Also I don't think earlier versions of IE support the css attribute (I think IE7+ does. Pretty sure IE6 does not).

[dadamssg]

im not exactly sure what you mean when you say "pre tag". Could you clarify what you're talking about please?

[.josh]

<pre>
  something here
la la             lah
more something
</pre>

 

It stands for pre-formatted

[dadamssg]

i see...so does mysql recognize the spaces? if so then all i would have to do is output the data like so?

 echo "<pre>".$row['data']."</pre>";

 

or will i have to input it like so ?

$data = "<pre>".$_POST['data']."</pre>";

[.josh]

It depends on what data type you set your mysql column to.  afaik none of them will strip out extra space internal to your data, but depending on what type you use, it may pad the end of the string with extra space to reach the length you set it to be. For example, If you set it to a column type of fixed width (like char(50)) and you have 20 char string, it will not strip out internal extra spaces, but it will pad the end of the string to make it 50 chars long.  If you have a variable width column type like varchar(50), it will not pad the string.  If you use a binary data type column like blob, it will store it as is (in binary format though).

 

So to make a long story short, you don't really have to worry about what happens to your data when it's going in to sql, except you might have to trim it if you use a fixed length data type.

[dadamssg]

its set to text...so yeah i think i just need to output it between the pre tag, i just put some text with multiple spaces and linebreaks into the db and it get stored the same way i put it in, just doesn't output right...so thanks. ill try to the pre tag and hopefully thatll work

[dadamssg]

that did it! now i just gotta figure out how to change the font/color of the text...made the text look stretched...hmmm

[.josh]

yeah the default font for pre tag is monospace.  You should be able to hook font styling to it.

[dadamssg]

yeah...this has nothing to do with spaces but maybe someone could help me with this since i already have a thread open.

 

i have an inbox for messages in a table...and i want to make the subject clickable, but they have the option to leave the subject blank if they have something in the actual message...but if they leave the subject blank...theres nothing to click. so i thought i would try to make the table cell clickable but that didn't work.

 

heres what i got

 

$subject = ucwords($row['subject']);
echo "<td><h3><a href = showmessage.php?ms={$row['messageid']}>{$subject}</a></h3></td>";

 

any ideas?

[.josh]

better off asking that in the javascript forum...

[thebadbad]

You should be able to make it clickable with javascript (yeah, I know, wrong forum):

 

$subject = ucwords($row['subject']);
echo "<td onclick=\"window.location.href = 'showmessage.php?ms={$row['messageid']}';\" style=\"cursor: pointer;\"><h3><a href=\"showmessage.php?ms={$row['messageid']}\">{$subject}</a></h3></td>";

[dadamssg]

hey thanks...ill have to try that