text not right...

Anon

I have a form that when we put data in, it contains upto 10 spaces and \ / '? all kinds of characters.

When I view the table the text is just like i put it in. When I call the text, it kills all the extra spaces and \/ ? etc..

All I want is for it to show me what i put in exactly how i put it in and the way it shows in the actual table.

here is my format_news:

function format_text($text){
$text = htmlspecialchars($text);

$text = ereg_replace("\n","<BR>",$text);

$text = ereg_replace(
      "(http://[-_./a-zA-Z0-9!&%#?'=:~]+)",
      "<A HREF =\"\\1\" target=\"\_blank\">\\1</A>",
      $text
      );

$text = ereg_replace( 
      "([-_.a-zA-Z0-9]+\@[-_a-zA-Z0-9]+\.[-_a-zA-Z0-9]+)",
      "<A HREF =\"mailto:\\1\">\\1<A>",
      $text
      );
return $text;

}

thanks guru's!

Anon

I have tried nl2br with no luck

it is like it is parsing extra spaces and deleting the \'s that i have in the text.

Please help..