[RESOLVED] htmlspecialchars() not converting special chars?!

[bladx]

Hey everyone,

I'm working on a PHP project, and I was expecting to be able to use the htmlspecialchars() function to take a string that contains something like an "&" and the & would be changed to &.

But when I tried to use a string with the function, the string remained unchanged?!

All I am doing code-wise is something as simple (to test it if it even works,):

echo htmlspecialchars("test & < >");

Am I missing something?

I tried searching around on Google, and here at the forum, but I could not find someone else who has had the same weird problem. Thanks.

andy

[bradgrafelman]

Uhm... when you use that function, you change things such as ampersands ('&') to their HTML-safe equivalent ('&').

When you echo the result of that function... you're echo'ing the HTML safe value '&' which is converted to '&' by your browser (assuming you aren't viewing the page in a text-only mode, which I highly doubt).

So, yes, you should see the exact string you typed in if you view the output of that fuction in your browser. Now, if you look at the source of the page, you'll probably see '&' instead of '&'.

[bladx]

Ah, gotcha.

Thanks for the help; I should have noticed that... my mind is just going. :/