looping with nl2br and htmlspecialchars

Anon

I am trying to deactivate html code and instert breaks where there are line breaks in every element of my result array. I am using this code:
$row_array = mysql_fetch_array($result);

$num_elements = count ($row_array);

for ($i = 0; $i < $num_elements; $i++) {

$row_array[$i] = htmlspecialchars($row_array[$i]);
$row_array[$i] = nl2br($row_array[$i]);
}

But non of the elements of the array actually come out with br's for line breaks, and html code is still active in all the elements. Why is this loop basically doing nothing?

Anon

Ok, i think I have made some progress... I have changed my code to this:
$row_array = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$num_elements = count ($row_array);

for ($i = 0; $i < $num_elements; $i++) {
$row_array[$i] = nl2br(htmlspecialchars($row_array[$i]));
}

Now the problem is this, this code seems to work if I call the elements of the array by doing $row_array[1] but not when I use $row_array["comments"]
Since I almost always type out the element name, and don't use the number, this is a big problem. How do I make the associative array work, and not just the numerical!?

Anon

Try doing this:
$row_array = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$num_elements = count ($row_array);

for ($i = 0; $i < $num_elements; $i++) {
$output_array[$i] = $row_array[$i];
$output_array[$i] = nl2br(htmlspecialchars($output_array[$i]));
}

Phat Wang
I\'m Rewangulous!

Anon

I would code it this way:

<?
$row_array = mysql_fetch_assoc ($result);
foreach ($row_array as $key => $value) {
$value = htmlspecialchars ($value);
$value = nlbr ($value);
$row_array[$key] = $value;
}
extract $row_array;
?>

The "mysql_fetch_assoc" function creates and accociative array instead of an enumerated array. If you really want to deactivate all HTML you should add "strip_tags" to the loop as well (before the "htmlspecialchars" and "nlbr" calls).