passing a parameter in a link

[MidOhioIT]

Can someone tell me why the following code is not working correctly?  The scenerio is that the variable $business_name = "teeth fixes"  it only gets the first word and not the entire phrase.  If I do "teeth_fixes" then it will get the entire phrase.  For some reason when it hits the space it cuts the rest off.  The same variable business name just before the "</a>" in the link has the whole name just fine, it has something to do with the param function i guess?? I even tried to do the link different like this:

echo"<tr>                                   
                <td><a href=show_coupon.php?business=".$business_name.">$business_name</a>
                <td>                                        
        </tr>";

 

But that did not seem to work either.

 

Here is the code that is breaking the words.  Not sure why or how to fix it

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($cat_coupons)) 
                                 {
                                $business_name = $row["business_name"];
								                          echo"<tr>
                                           <td><a href=show_coupon.php?business=$business_name>$business_name</a></td>
                                        </tr>";
	 }

 

Any help in advanced is appriciated.

[cags]

A space is not a valid URL character. You will need to use something like urlencode.

 

echo
"<tr>                                   
   <td><a href=show_coupon.php?business=".urlencode($business_name).">$business_name</a><td>                                        
</tr>";

Then on show_coupon.php you can use urldecode to put the value back as was.

[MidOhioIT]

cags, thanks for your help.  I notice that it puts a "+" on it.  so i just had to do a

$business = str_replace('+', ' ', $business);

to get rid of the place and allow spaces again.  this worked, thank you for your help !

 

[cags]

Use...

 

$business = urldecode($business);

 

The urlencode function replaces more characters than just the space. There's a good chance you won't have those characters in your string, but it's always best to stick to the pre-designed functions where possible. Don't forget to mark the topic as solved by clicking 'Mark Solved' (bottom left corner of threads you start).