[Resolved] How to handle textarea boxes in PHP?

[badgoat]

Hi!

How does one incorporate a textarea box into a script, where the data entered within goes to a table? I know the basics, like how to pass the variable, but what I do not know is how to keep the formatting and spacing that was used when someone typed into the text box, when I display the data from the table. Is there a way to do this? Or a better way which would avoid a textarea box altogether?

<textarea name="address" cols=30 rows=3>
text here
</textarea>

[devinemke]

the text sent via a textarea is just a string with what ever formatting (spaces, line returns, etc...) the user entered. you can enter that string into a database but consider the following:

1. use [man]trim[/man] to get rid of unwated spaces at the beginning and end of the string.
2. use [man]strip_tags[/man] if you don't want to allow users to enter HTML.
3. use [man]htmlspecialchars[/man] on any form input that is to be displayed in the browser (this incluldes text within a form input itself)
4. always use [man]addslashes[/man] on any form data that is going into a database (unless PHP is doing it for you via magic_quotes_gpc).
5. store the text with the CR/LF characters as is and use [man]nl2br[/man] to convert to <br> tags.

[badgoat]

hi devinemke,

Is it possible to use more than one of those at a time, for example,

echo trim addlashes ($str);
?

[devinemke]

yes

echo trim(addlashes($str));

[badgoat]

This format doesn't work.. Am I missing a bracket?

echo nl2br(htmlentities('.$_POST['billdata'].')) ;

[badgoat]

Nevermind, I got it! This is what worked:

echo nl2br(htmlentities($_POST['billdata'])); 

Thank you kindly for the assistance!