stripslashes( ) problem

Anon

Hi, quick summary of what im trying to do. I am passing variables from one page to the next over a series of 5 pages. there is various types info fields to be filled in (name, address, phone, item description, etc)
in the beginning, when I would come to the end of my script, all of my variables that were TEXT and contained special characters (',", \, etc) where written with slashes before them. example don't would be seen as don\'t by the end user. In an attempt to fix this, I passed each variable through a hidden form field like this, stripping the slashes from each variable in each page:

<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"$name\" value=\" " . stripslashes ($name) . " \">.

this got rid of the slashes okay, but it created a new problem. There are now spaces before and after each resolved variable like this:

the end problem is that when its upped to teh database its upped with the spaces and I am unable to do searches on the data unless I use % characters before and after the value.

what caused these spaces to be added to the script? how do I get rid of them? is there a better way to track variables over many pages and not have to use hidden form fields?

any help with this is greatly appreciated.

blue presley

Anon

I might do something like this:

echo "<input type=\"text\" name=\"fname\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"35\" value=\"". stripslashes(eregi_replace("\"", """, $fname)) ."\">";

The reason I replace the quote is because it will cause the form field (text) to break at the first instance of a quote. I'm sure there are better ways around that problem but it works in the areas where I desire it, and since I converted alot from ASP it was easy for me. I think htmlspecialchars would also serve the same function, not sure if it would result performance gains or not.

Anon

note: the replacing character """, is supposed to read, & quot; but for obvious reasons it is displaying as " ;D

Anon

what caused these spaces to be added to the script?

Please don't shoot me, but you put them there yourself.

Look at this:

    "... value=\" " . stripslashes(...

After 'value', you have an escaped quote, then a space, then the end-of-string quote before you concatentate value of stripslashes. Just take out the space:

    "... value=\"" . stripslashes(...

Anon

Hi, i thought that may be the problem. my confusion now is about the rules of programming. Generally (keyword, eh?) if programming ignores while spaces (spaces), then why is this an exception?

blue

Anon

Nobody anywhere (that I am aware of) ignores whitespace inside quoted strings. It's not like you're saying:

$data = function1() . function2();

where the amount of whitespace separating the variables, function names, and operators truly doesn't matter. Instead, you've got:

"name" vs "  name  "

and most assuredly those internal spaces do matter.