Formatting and URL's

Tezread

I have poplated a database using PHPMyAdmin as well as online forms I built myself and have noticed that irrespective of the formating I use the text entered appears in continous prose- i.e not paragraphs, underlining of key words etc.
I was also wondering how it was possible to have references to URL's/web addresses in a query appear as hyperlinks- here is my generic query:

<?php 
if (isset($_GET['quality_name'])) { 
$user = "luser"; 
$host = "dbserv.example.net"; 
$password = "notarealpassword"; 
$connection = mysql_connect($host, $user, $password) or die ("Couldn't connect to server."); 
$database = "mindseye"; 
$db = mysql_select_db($database) or die ("Couldn't select database."); 

$course = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['quality_name']); 
$res = "SELECT * FROM qualityadmin WHERE quality_name = '$quality_name'"; 
$result = mysql_query($res) or die(mysql_error()); 
if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) { 
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { 

// begin output here: 
echo '<style type="text/css"> 
#myTable td { 
    font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif; 
    font-size: 14px; 
    } 
.heading { 
    background:#eee; 
    color: #0000cc; 
    } 
</style> 
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1" id="myTable" width="700px"> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">Quality Name</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['quality_name'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="4">Authority Body</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['authority_body'] . '</td>
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading">Address 1</td> 
<td class="heading">Address 2</td> 
<td class="heading">Town</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>' . $row['address1'] . '</td> 
<td>' . $row['address2'] . '</td> 
<td>' . $row['town'] . '</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading">Postcode</td> 
<td class="heading">Telephone</td> 
<td class="heading">Email</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>' . $row['postcode'] . '</td> 
<td>' . $row['telephone'] . '</td> 
<td>' . $row['email'] . '</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">Website</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['website'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">Local Agency</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['local_agency'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">Contact</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['contact'] .'</td> 
</tr>
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">What is it</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['what_is_it'] .'</td> 
</tr>  

<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">Who and what does it apply to?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['who_what_apply'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">How does it work?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['how_work'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">What are the resource implications?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['resource_implications'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">How do you meet the standards and get assessed?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['how_meet_standards'] .'</td> 
</tr>
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">How widespread is it?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['widespread'] .'</td> 
</tr>  

<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">What are the pros and cons?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['pros_cons'] .'</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td class="heading" colspan="3">What are the benefits?</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td colspan="3">' . $row['benefits'] .'</td> 
</tr> 

</table>'; 

} 

} else { 
//course name not found 
//note: the query may have failed to so maybe check for that. 
} 
} else { 
//no course specified 
} 
?>

here is the link to thr queries in question- notice the lack of text formatting, link breaks, paragraphs in the main bodies of text.

http://www.mindseyemidlands.co.uk/notts_quality/info_resource/qualitysystem_complete_details.php?quality_name=PQASSO

frikikip

You could start by using the nl2br() function like this:

<td colspan="3">' . nl2br( $row['widespread'] ) .'</td>

That at least converts the linbebreaks to <br /> tags giving the text some basic layout.

frikikip

PS:

Its usually not a smart thing to show your database host, username and password in your example code.

bpat1434

how it was possible to have references to URL's/web addresses in a query appear as hyperlinks-

Make it one in your output:

<tr>
<td colspan="3"><a href="' . $row['website'] .'">Homepage</a></td>
</tr>

Or, you can do something as intricate as this:

$dtld = array('http://', 'www.', '.com', '.edu', '.fr', '.org', '.eu', '.us', '.biz', '.net', '.cz', '.it', '.cc', '.ca');  // Add other TLD items as needed

//... echo
'<tr>
<td colspan="3"><a href="' . $row['website'] .'">'. str_replace($dtld, '', $row['website']). '</a></td>
</tr>

Tezread

Good stuff- is it possible to add bullet point to specific parts of the rows I have echoed as well as bold for specific words in echoed rows?

Tezread

bpat1434 wrote:

Or, you can do something as intricate as this:

$dtld = array('http://', 'www.', '.com', '.edu', '.fr', '.org', '.eu', '.us', '.biz', '.net', '.cz', '.it', '.cc', '.ca');  // Add other TLD items as needed

//... echo
'<tr>
<td colspan="3"><a href="' . $row['website'] .'">'. str_replace($dtld, '', $row['website']). '</a></td>
</tr>

this is a nice approach as it is dynamic in that it selects URLs from anywhere in the db record but I found one issue and that is that the href is highlighted but the URL is added onto the end of my own URL- have a look at this record and you see what I mean: (check out the website bit)

http://www.mindseyemidlands.co.uk/notts_quality/info_resource/qualitysystem_complete_details.php?quality_name=Investor+in+People

bpat1434

That's because the URLs are not full urls including [url]HTTP://.[/url].. this is something you need to take care of in one of a few ways:
1.) Require http:// as a prefix to the url during submission
2.) Automatically prepend "http://" onto the url during insertion
3.) Look to see if "http://" appears in the string: if not [ add it ] | otherwise leave it be

Option 3 would probably be easiest to implement right away:

 $dtld = array('http://', 'www.', '.com', '.edu', '.fr', '.org', '.eu', '.us', '.biz', '.net', '.cz', '.it', '.cc', '.ca');  // Add other TLD items as needed

//... echo
'<tr>
<td colspan="3"><a href="'. ((strpos($row['website'], 'http://')===false)?'http://':'') . $row['website'] .'">'. str_replace($dtld, '', $row['website']). '</a></td>

But it's best to take care of this in the database or form so that you don't have to use what looks to be dirty code....

Tezread

bpat1434 wrote:
But it's best to take care of this in the database or form so that you don't have to use what looks to be dirty code....

Sorry for all the questions> How do you this? especially when wanting to apply bold, underline text and bullet specific lines- how can that be done 'cleanly'?

bpat1434

Adding the formatting tags is not "unclean" but I meant doing the dynamic prepenidng of "http://" to the string. It can be time-consuming and riddled with flaws. It's best to avoid these, and either
1.) Require that they use the full name: http://www.domain.com
or
2.) Use the normal link: www.domain.com and you prepend it in PHP.

Something like:

<?php

// Prepend the string
$website = 'http://'.$_POST['website'];

The code above should work though.

Tezread

im still not clear on how I can select specific pieces of text and format them e.g. bold/underline/bullets- am i missing something? sorry

bpat1434

<b>'.$row['column_name'].'</b>
<em>'.$row['column_name'].'</em>
<u>'.$row['column_name'].'</u>

That will do the bold, italic, and underline..... if you want to get more specific, it requires a more advanced knowledge of what you want combined with how it's being stored in the database.

Tezread

I see- im not sure how i could store specific text formating commands in the database. Are there any past threads that cover this or give examples?

bpat1434

The text formatting is regular HTML code. You can put that in the database if you want, or you can just put in in the PHP echo() or print() statement around the information you want styled.