special chars problem

[hushtalk]

hi all i am new here, i was looking for some help as im stuck with something

 

i have given myself the task to make a blog script all is going fine untill this:

 

i go to mysql to fill in the form from there  i put this text:

Facebook… A phenomenon, a revelation, a lifestyle, the eighth wonder of the world… I can just go on and might probably even run out of synonyms that will do justice to this 21st Century

 

 

this is what i get when i print it

Facebook� A phenomenon, a revelation, a

lifestyle, the eighth wonder of the world� I can

just go on and might probably even run out of synonyms that will

do justice to this 21st Century marvel. There are very few sites

or companies that can boast the success Facebook

enjoys� let�s see, Google, Microsoft,

Amazon�? Hmmm, can�t think of too many

sites that can compete with Facebook when it comes to

popularity. Hell, it�s almost become a religion now

(& Iâ��m a follower I confess  ). In the 5 years it

has existed Facebook has changed the way people live.

I�m afraid we live our lives through Facebook, for

Facebook & with Facebook! It�s become so bad that I

don�t think I can even remember the time when Facebook

was not there!

All said & done Facebook is equal to oxygen for millions

& millions of people (including me!) but do we know the

journey it has gone through?

 

 

i use this to print it out

 $con = wordwrap($blogrow['content'], 64);


  
  echo $con; 

 

$con is the content

 

when i use a form to print the same its even worse,.. then it actually puts even weirder input in the database

 

any help on this please i think i almost looked all over google but what i found i can hardly understand lol

 

 

 

 

 

[MrXHellboy]

Try htmlspecialchars_decode()

[hushtalk]

no, same problem,.. but... i done some googling again,  and together with your suggestion i found

 

html_entity_decode()

 

and that works!! so thank you!

 

btw what is the difference between both?

 

[MrXHellboy]

Long story short:

htmlspecialchars_decode will decode HTML special chars which have a meaning in HTML like, &, <div>, "

whereas html_entity_decode will translate ALL the special characters

[hushtalk]

hmm.. maybe i will have to play around with both

 

now i got it workin, now i figured that when i want something in bold for example i will have to add tags, like <b></b> for example,.. now with entity decode that wont work anymore ofcourse

 

so in  the submit entry form i suppose i will have to use htmlentuty first?

then decode again for print?

[MrXHellboy]

It depens on how the data is put into the DB and retrieved from it. Which functions it passes etc etc

[hushtalk]

i hope you dont mind getting deeper into this

 

the data gets entered via a simple form then insertted with this code :

foreach($_POST as $key => $value) {
$data[$key] = filter($value);
}


mysql_query("INSERT INTO blog(title, content, date, source, source_link,picture) VALUES('$data[title]','$data[content]','$data[date]','$data[source]','$data[source_link]','$data[picture]')") or die(mysql_error());

 

 

 

then the output is like this

$thatblog = $_GET['blogid'];
if($thatblog==""){ 

 $position=50; // Define how many character you want to display.


$post = substr($blogrow['content'], 0, $position); 
$txt=html_entity_decode($post);
echo $txt;
echo "..."; ?><br/><br/><br/>
      <strong><a href="blog.php?blogid=<? echo $blogrow['id'] ?>&article=<? echo $blogrow['title'] ?>" style="text-decoration:none;color:#090"><em><br/>
      go to post</em></a></strong>
<?


 }else{

 $con = wordwrap($blogrow['content'], 64);
  
//$html = htmlspecialchars($utf8_string, ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8');
$txt=html_entity_decode($con);

  
  echo $txt; }

 

[MrXHellboy]

I assume filter() is one of your own ? Could you provide the code ?

[hushtalk]

that bit i pasted out the login script i downloaded somewhere,.. i guess that could be left out

 

i think its a jquery function

if i leave that bit out i could just enter the values with $POST

 

[MrXHellboy]

Ok back to the issue... You use html_entity_decode() to translate special chars back to their characters, and with this they lose their special meaning in HTML like <b>Indeed</b>

 

In this case, prevent that the script will put the data into the DB with already html entities. Just like you would write something down, it has to go in the DB.

 

From there you must translate.

 

 

[hushtalk]

so i have to use html_entity_decode before posting to the database right?

 

and afterwards with more code allow some tags and convert?

 

that makes sence to me..

 

thank you!

[hushtalk]

all done and sorted and most of all working,.. i can now add tags to posts and with no weird signs showing

 

this is actually the first time on a forum like this that people take time to explain to make me understand so its easy for me to figure it out myself

usually or they ignore my posts or they just give me the code!

[MrXHellboy]

A explanation is way better then providing codes. You wont learn anything @ all....

 

All works fine now ?

[hushtalk]

yes i changed it to this

$postedcontent=$_POST["content"];
$postedtxt = htmlspecialchars_decode($postedcontent, ENT_QUOTES);

mysql_query("INSERT INTO blog(title, content, date, source, source_link,picture) VALUES('$data[title]','$postedtxt','$data[date]','$data[source]','$data[source_link]','$data[picture]')") or die(mysql_error());

 

 

and

if($thatblog==""){ 

 $position=50; // Define how many character you want to display.


$post = substr($blogrow['content'], 0, $position); 

echo $post;
echo "..."; ?><br/><br/><br/>
      <strong><a href="blog.php?blogid=<? echo $blogrow['id'] ?>&article=<? echo $blogrow['title'] ?>" style="text-decoration:none;color:#090"><em><br/>
      go to post</em></a></strong>
<?


 }else{
 $con = wordwrap($blogrow['content'], 64);
   
  echo $con; }

the result is i can now use tags , even embed etc