Double quote problem.

[The_Equalizer]

I am working with a CMS (content management system) which allows me to use php scripts in its templates. The CMS output content from these templates using its own smart tags, e.g.:

<T4 name="Text" output="normal" modifiers="imagebank, nav_sections"/>

The content produced from these smart tags (which is retrieved from a db which I have no access to) can then be manipulated using php, e.g.

<?php
echo (“ This is my text from the CMS: <T4 name=\"Text\" output=\"normal\" modifiers=\"imagebank, nav_sections\"/>”);
?>

This will be passed to the php engine like this as the CMS does its translation first:

<?php
echo (“ This is my text from the CMS: MY CONTENT ”);
?>

where MY CONTENT is text stored by the CMS.

The problem being how can I avoid problems when the MY CONTENT bit contains quotes? Is there any function that handle this? For example, if MY CONTENT is :

John said “Hello World” to everyone.

The php would like like this:

<?php
echo (“ This is my text from the CMS: John said “Hello World” to everyone. ”);
?>
Obviously causing an error. Is there any function that can handle these rogue double quotes?

Any ideas, anyone? Many, many thanks in advance to whoever can save the day!

[bike5]

Write a function to replace " with \" for each one. Putting the [/B] tells php to just output it like normal text. I think thats what you are asking.


ex: echo"This will "cause an error"";
echo"This will \"not cause an error\""; //This will "not cause an error"

[MouthOfSauron]

Maybe use the 'here document' echo mode :

echo <<<SYMBOL
This is my text from the CMS: $content
SYMBOL;

Actually I'd like to know why this mode isn't used more often, I really hate adding all those "\" into PHP.

Is there some performance hit or other reason?

[dave420]

It's not used because it's a nasty throwback to the darker days of coding 😉 We have better constructs these days, or even better - not mixing HTML and PHP together 😉

[MouthOfSauron]

I believe "here documents", as they are called, are a PHP 4 (newish) feature, finally offering what other Unix scripting languages have had for ages.

Looking into this it seems the reverse, that here documents aren't used for compatibility with the people daft enough to be running PHP3.

Unless, of course, anyone knows better....

[The_Equalizer]

Thanks people. The "here documents" thing looks promising. I'm trying to get this fixed before I go away on holiday tomorrow. Busy reading up on the topic.

As some of you guessed, the escape slash (/") will not work as the CMS writes out its text then passes the content to the php engine. I'd love to stop it mid way and add the slashes, but obviously I can't! Anyway, thanks once again and I must press on with my reading.

All the best,

Pete.