Auto Storing The formatting in Text Fields?

[Accurax]

Here is an example of my code:

[code]
  <table align ="center" id="description_tab">
<tr>
  <td>
  <form method="POST" action= "update_bandtype.php">
    <textarea name="intro" cols="50" size="100"></textarea>
  </form>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align ="center"><input name="submit" type="submit" value="Update" /></td>
</tr>
  </table>[/code]

The above form submits the entered text into a MYsql database, and i make queries to this database on other pages.

I have two problems here,

1) html is accepted in the text area, stored in the database and then processed whenever i call the information, I would like to Ignore html, or for that matter everything except harmeless text :)

2) Keystroke formatting does not work, if the user hits return to go to a new line in the text area, this is not stored in the database, and all formatting is lost when i re-call the info later. However html formatting does work (see point 1).

Does anyone know how id go about doing this please ??

[trq]

1. [url=http://php.net/strip_tags]strip_tags[/url]().
2. [url=http://php.net/nl2br]nl2br[/url]().

Its amazing what you'll find in the manual.

[Accurax]

ahh so thats what they do

pmsl

i did wonder

thanks mate

[Accurax]

Ok, i have it working... kind of

when i use nl2br() to add line breaks, it actually echos "<br />" onto the screen when i call the information ... is it possible to get it to just start a new line without showing the tag?

[trq]

Post you code and the exact html output (ie right click and view source).