Apostrophe problems

twilson

I am having MAJOR problems with apostrophes and inserting data into a mySQL table.

I am using addslashes() to pre-process my values before I insert them into the table. YET, sometimes when people come through and enter data containing an apostrophe it CUTS OFF the remainder of the data and inserts only everything before the apostrophe.

Has anyone else experienced this sporadic apostrophe problem and maybe knows what the problem/solution is??

Thanks in advance!!!

Tom 🙂

devinemke

if you have magic_quotes ON in your php.ini then you do not want/need to addslahes. if you do, you will be double slashing.

Roger_Ramjet

http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/function.addslashes.php
"The PHP directive magic_quotes_gpc is on by default, and it essentially runs addslashes() on all GET, POST, and COOKIE data. Do not use addslashes() on strings that have already been escaped with magic_quotes_gpc as you'll then do double escaping. The function get_magic_quotes_gpc() may come in handy for checking this. "

Check your php info to see if this is the case.

twilson

Thank you for the quick replies.

I was hopeful that that was the problem, but it unfortunately is not.

magic_quotes_gpc Off Off

Any other ideas??

Thanks!

Tom 🙂

devinemke

have you echoed your SQL to the browser to see if the quotes are being properly escaped?

twilson

Yes, and it is. Every time I test the code, it fricken works. For anyone else it's sporadic at best. 🙁

I am so confused.

Just in case this helps:

The server is FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE, PHP 4.3.8 with mySQL 4.0.14-log

Thanks,
Tom 🙁

Roger_Ramjet

Thinking outside the box, who hosts your site? Who else is on the server? Is someone able to reset magic_quotes_gpc for the whole server when they should only be altering their own?

The manual has code for checking magic quotes at runtime and branching accordingly. Best I can suggest is to include that routine and see what you get. Can't think of any reason why it is sporadic.

The other alternative is to clean the user input before submitting it. Use instr to search for ' or " etc.

twilson

Yeah I've actually tried cleaning the input on another form on the same site doing the same thing, and just removing all apostrophes. It still cuts off after where the first apostrophe should be. =\ Something is so screwed up 🙂

I will try checking magic_quotes_gpc at run-time...

Thanks,
Tom 🙂

Roger_Ramjet

I was a bit quick off the mark with suggesting instr to clean the data. Of course you would actually need to use a javascript function on the page that is called 'onsubmit' from the form. PHP only being server side so by the time it gets to php it is too late. But then you were probably doimg that on your other page.