weird problem with two strings being equal

[jeff5656]

I want to compare something in the database with a POSTed string to see if they are equal:

$query = "SELECT * FROM `testbase` WHERE `id` = '".$id."' ";
$result = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query($query)) or die(mysql_error());
echo $result['t3'];
echo "<br>";
echo $_POST['t3'];

 

When I do that I get this:

WBC 7 Hg 7 INR: 1.4 Cx:

WBC 7 Hg 7 INR: 1.4 Cx:

 

They look the same right?

 

But when I do this,

if($result['t3'] == $_POST['t3']) {
    echo "they are equal"

}
else {
echo "Not equal"
}

 

I get

Not equal.

 

But they sure look equal!!  Any ideas??

[Muddy_Funster]

what do you get if you use

if(trim($result['t3']) == trim($_POST['t3'])) {

[jeff5656]

what do you get if you use

if(trim($result['t3']) == trim($_POST['t3'])) {

 

Hey now it says equal!  Thanks.  But why does that work.  Was there an invisible  carriage return in one?

[Muddy_Funster]

likely extra whitespace and/or special characters returned from the database.

[PFMaBiSmAd]

If the data in your database was imported from a file, it probably has new-lines at the end of each value. You can confirm if it is the data in the table by removing the trim() from that side of the comparison. You should probably run an UPDATE query to TRIM() all the values in the table.

[jeff5656]

Great, thanks guys.