textarea pre-formatting

Anon

Hi,

I have a form that includes <textarea>. User input into the text area will be large amounts of text. The text is then saved into mysql db.

When I later retrieve the text from mysql using php, the formatting is lost.

I know users can use html tags like <br> and <p> to format the page, but is there a way to make the text appear exactly the way the user types it in?

I need to do this because I'm not sure all my users know html. Thanks.

Richie.

Anon

You need to convert newlines to <BR>s (use nl2br(). You also need to either wrap the whole thing in a <PRE></PRE> tag or convert all the whitespace (spaces, tabs) to   There's probably a few more items as well but that should solve most of it.

brandonschnell

either limit the number of html tags the users can use or deny them any ability to use html tags. i think there are a couple of articles on phpbuilder.com on how to allow users to use html tags.

to keep formatting the same from what the users type in, set the textarea wrap to off and when you output the user inputted text, place it between <PRE> </PRE> html tags (this will retain most user formatting).

there are other more complicated ways to do this, but this should get you started.

Anon

Thanks a lot guys. I'll try your suggestions.