[RESOLVED] How to store in $str 'parsed' <pre> characters not its raw code characters?

[sherry]

Hello.

How to store the 'parsed' <pre> characters (that which is interpreted by the browser e.g. <, >, &, etc. NOT &lt;, &gt;, &amp; etc.) into a $str?

For simplicity, assume there's only 1 line of HTML code OR text containing an apostrophe or quotes between the <pre> tags.

Thanks in advance.

[Weedpacket]

First, [man]strip_tags[/man] to remove existing HTML tags. Then [man]html_entity_decode[/man] to translate entities into characters.

[sherry]

Thanks for your reply, Weedpacket.

I tried the html_entity_decode() and it completely parsed the tags e.g. &lt;p&gt; versus just converting it to <p> as it would be displayed as the browser interprets the contents within the <pre> tag.

Is there a way to only convert e.g. &lt; to < OR code for apostrope to ' while preserving the code with the HTML tag?

Thanks.

P.S. The literal HTML code for the apostrope kept being parsed here even within

tags. If you know how to present it here without it (&#39semi-colon) being parsed, please let me know. Thanks.

[sherry]

Hello.

Since I haven't found a routine that essentially 'reverses' <pre> code to what is displayed in the browser (originally typed code and/or PLAIN TEXT, et.al.) after interpreting the raw <pre> code, maybe there's a not-so-cumbersome way to create a routine to do it manually with, say, str_replace(). I will research this.

I appreciate any feedback.

Thanks.

[sherry]

RESOLVED - WOW!!!

Thanks Weedpacket, as those references you provided helped me with this conclusion when it didn't pick-n-choose certain html entities to reverse or it picked those I didn't want reversed for this particular code.

In researching and trial-and-error coding for this situation, it dawned on me that the PHP data used within the <pre> tag was contained in a $var before the browser interpreted it. By it originating via an editor similar to that used by this forum, that data as typed had to be passed to the routine before the browser displayed it (an instance of the proverbial brain cramp).

Just before I arrived at that solution in an effort to recapture the original code, I realized that trying to 'reverse' the <pre> tags' output results by e.g. converting &lt; to <, etc. may provide unwanted results, which it did using those functions and/or manually using str_replace(), et.al.

For example, reversing something like &nbsp; to a 'space' may be desired in one case or maybe should not be reversed in another. When using &nbsp; within PHP or HTML code, I wouldn't want that entity to be reversed, but I would want it reversed when, say, typing a poem. That's when it dawned on me (and I know this, wow...) that the original data when typed was then stored into a variable before being displayed by the browser. I was looking at it from the editor perspective too long, I guess. But I got it now and learned some more good stuff along the way so...

Thanks again.

I will mark this thread 'resolved.'