Strange behavior with strtr

[rorykost]

I am encountering some unexpected behavior in some string manipulation.

I retrieve a set of values from a database to use in a SELECT box. The values in the database occasionally have some # of leading and trailing spaces, with text:

example) " udl udl "

In order to represent them accurately in the SELECT box, I use strtr to replace all SPACES with * character, so the above text becomes:

example) "*udludl**"

The STRTR command is basically $string=strtr("*"," ",$oldstring)

This part appears to work as expected.

This value gets passed to the next page on submission.

Before I can put the value into the database, I must convert the * back into spaces.

using a similar STRTR command $string=strtr(" ","*",$oldstring)

I get unexpected results. It replaces any leading or trailing with NO SPACES, and any between two alpha characters with a SINGLE SPACE, instead of one space for each * so the output is:

example) "udl udl"

Can anyone assist me with this unusual result.

I don't want to parse the $oldstring one character at a time to recreate a new string with the proper # of spaces. I wonder if the fact that the character is a SPACE is somehow at the root of the issue.

feel free to reply here or drop me an email at [e-mail]

[shawon22]

use addslashes () function instread of doing everything manually. this will add backslashes b4 this characters(quote, double quote, backslahe...etc see php.net for more)

[shawon22]

oh and when u retrive the data use stripslashes() to get the original string.

[rorykost]

addslashes had NO effect on the original string. I don't believe that SPACE is a character that requires SLASHING-OUT.

I built a function to parse the $oldstring per character and replace the * with SPACE by hand. I cat'd it back together one character at a time and anytime there is more than one consecutive SPACE, only one space is present in the $newstring.

Anyone else have an idea?

[diego25]

I'm surprised it'd even work in your use of strtr...coz you've got the order of arguments wrong. Check out

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strtr.php

Diego