[Resolved] textarea formatting errors

[panoz]

Hey guys.

Been using the nl2br() to format the text that is inserted into a textarea and then sent to mysql. But two different problems have occured now..

First one:
Once I edit the text in the textarea and send it, it looks fine. But when I have to alter it again the <br /> tags are shown and they should appear I guess. But when the text is sent into mysql database once more the <br /> tags are twice as many. And the formatting is screwed up. Is there any way to get rid of it? Below is the code that I use for the sql query.

---

// Update the following parts in the info table from the values that are sent from update_info.php form

$query="UPDATE info SET infotext='".$POST['text_info']."', rubrik='".$POST['rubr_info']."';";

mysql_query(nl2br($query));

Second one:
Is it possible to not show the <br /> tags in the textarea?

[weekender]

when you edit a text field from a db, you have to remove the <br /> - this is ok, as each has an accompanying new line.

$content = str_replace("<br />", "", $content);

basically what happens is this

you put in a string

line1
line2

which is interpreted as

line1\nline2

so you use nl2br and it becomes

line1<br />\nline2

then you edit this, and it becomes

line1<br /><br />\nline2

and each time you edit it, the \n (which never gets removed) becomes another <br /> - so you strip the breaks, as above.

hope that helps

adam

[leatherback]

Hi,

What I do:

I store it in "raw" format.
Only when data goes to screen I run the nl2br over the output, together with some other formatting functions, all combined in one masterfunction:

echo encode($output);

J.

[panoz]

Weekener:
hrm.. ok then.. lets see if I get the hang of this..
I should use the str_replace when submitting the values or when showing the text into the textarea?

Btw I use one page to show + edit the textarea that sends the values to an other page which does some error checking and inserts the text into mysql.

Leatherback:
Raw format in mysql right?
But how is html going to understand that there are some breaks in the text or does the /n aswell get into that field?

[weekender]

use nl2br when you insert the data into the db (or update the data in the db)

use str_replace when you are putting the data into the textarea to edit

adam

[panoz]

Whoohoo.. seems like it did the trick!

------ First page
$query_update = "SELECT infotext, rubrik FROM info";
$update = mysql_query($query_update, $database_admin) or die(mysql_error());
$row_update = mysql_fetch_assoc($update);
$row_update = str_replace("<br />", "", $row_update);

$totalRows_update = mysql_num_rows($update);

------ Second page
$query="UPDATE info SET infotext='".$POST['text_info']."', rubrik='".$POST['rubr_info']."';";

mysql_query(nl2br($query));

No xtra <br /> tags and no <br /> tags showing in textarea!

Thanks for your help Weekender! 😃

[weekender]

no problemo - don't forget to 'mark thread resolved' via the link at the bottom

seeya