data output question

182x

Hey guys, I have put data into the database wchich contains the word "can't" I have escaped this so it displayed normally in most tables but in one case it is displayed "can<?>t" I was just wondering why the question mark has appeared? Thanks.

NogDog

It is probably a directional quote rather than a standard apostrophe. Try running your output through [man]htmlentities/man before sending it to the browser.

182x

it also works in IE so I have no idea whats up now.

as I am just displaying the data direct from the database

182x

ah yes just discovered its the type of apostrophie that appears when copied from microsoft word but I still don't understand why its only in one of the tables it decideds to mess up. Any ideas why that is?

182x

Just tried html entities that also didn't work.

182x

I still can't figure this one out. Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to solve this issue? thanks.

NogDog

I cannot help further without a link to the page to see what is actually being output and/or seeing the source code involved. Simply telling me that htmlentities() did now work does not help much, as I've used it hundreds of times with no problem, but have absolutely no idea how you tried to use it. I guess I'm just not very good at debugging invisible code. 😉

182x

hehe sorry here is the code im using:

$r= "SELECT * FROM table";
	$qTest= mysql_query($r, $link_id) or die(mysql_error());

while($test=mysql_fetch_array($qTest))
{

echo "<tr><td>".$test['info']."</td><td>".$display['textInfo']."</td><td>";
}

Could it have anything to do with teh data being inserted using the mysql_real_escape_string() function? as I have used it to insert data into one table and then extract data from that table which is then inserted to the table the query uses also using the function mysql_real_escape_string().

paulnaj

Hi 182x,

It sounds to me that it's the browser having problems displaying the character and showing the <?> in it's place.

I have only ever seen the <?> character when displaying XML documents, but I suppose it could show up under different circumstances.

View the source of the output to see which character is actually being delivered to the browser.

Paul.

182x

the character is an apostrophie but not the normal kind the kind you get when you copy something from microsoft word.

paulnaj

If (when you view the source) you see the Word-style apostrophe then the database has successfully stored and retrieved it.

So it's not a mysql-related problem. As I said on my last post, it may be an XML problem.

If your HTML starts with ...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

... then try removing the xml tag, leaving just the doctype.

182x

When you say viewing the cource do you mean looking at the data directy in the database?

I just have the doctype and no XML at all.

NogDog

So what happens if you do:

$r= "SELECT * FROM table";
    $qTest= mysql_query($r, $link_id) or die(mysql_error());

while($test=mysql_fetch_array($qTest))
{

echo "<tr><td>".htmlentities($test['info'])."</td><td>".htmlentities($display['textInfo'])."</td><td>";
}

182x

The problem still remains the same.

NogDog

What character encoding do you specify for your HTML page?

Any possibility of putting the page online so we can see the whole thing and how it displays in the browser. (You could just copy the result of a local page display by doing a "view source" from your browser, Ctrl-A to copy it all, and pasted it into a page we can view on the web -- or upload it as a file here if that's not possible.)

182x

This is the type of encoding I use

 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

I am at a different machine now, is the rest of the source code is needed? I can post it first thing tomorrow if it is.

NogDog

That's the document type. The character encoding, if you have one, would be in a line like:

<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html; charset=[color=red]ISO-8859-1[/color]'>

182x

Ah I see, No i don't have that. Is it necessary?

NogDog

Without it, the browser will have to arbitrarily choose an encoding. I believe the character in question is ASCII code 146, which will not display in UTF-8, but will in ISO-8859-1. However, it really should not matter if htmlentities() is used to convert it to:

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