Text to variables

spyro187

I am having trouble with assigning text to variables.

Basically I cannot figure out how to make a variable store text with quotes. I'm sure there is a simple fix.

Ex:
$data="this" is "" my text";
echo $data;

If I put something like this it returns unexpected T_STRING.
The data it gets it not static and is from a database. I've tried using addslashes() with no luck. I understand why it doesn't work but can't figure out a fix for it.

ahundiak

Several approaches

$data = 'Art';
$attr = 'value="' . $data . '"';  // Uses the . operator to concat strings
$attr = "value=\"{$data}\""; // Uses \" to output "

You might also lookup the heredoc syntax in the manual.

spyro187

I'm still not getting it. My fault.

You have $data = 'Art';

But in my case its not just 'Art'. It is data from a field in a SQL database which can be anything. It can be
A'rt
A'R"t
or anything. So I can't just assign the data that is returned from the field to a variable because it automatically does not work.

Would it be easier to post my entire script?

spyro187

So my problem is not the text which gets assigned to a variable. I originally thought it was chopping data but it my function that is messed up. Here it is, please tell me if there is any way I can rewrite it to make it better. It's the first function i've ever written.

function charsbefaft($srchword,$str1,$int)
{

//This function searches the returned data for the search word and returns
//a designated set of chars before and after the search word.

$str2 = split(" ",$str1);

$srchword2=array_search($srchword,$str2);

$num1=$srchword2 + $int;

$num2=$srchword2 - $int - 1;

if ( $num2<0 ) {
$num2=0;
}

while ( $num2 < $num1 )
{
echo $str2[$num2];
echo " ";
$num2=$num2+1;
}

}

ahundiak

$data was just an example of a piece of data from somewhere.
$attr contains the quoted data. Try echoing it out.

Otherwise, I'm not understanding your question so pasting in the script would be the next step. Be sure to surround it with

 tags so it formats nicely.

EDIT: Just saw your post #4.  Definitely not solving your problem.  

I'd suggest maybe you post a short list of test cases i.e. when you call your function with these values then you expect to get whatever.

spyro187

Can you see any reasons why my function would not work correctly? Or is there a built in function that can do what I have written better.

ahundiak

Again it's not clear to me exactly what your function is supposed to do. Post a few:

charsbefaft('needle','find a needle in the haystack',3);  // Should echo ???