can't get video to display when echoed

frijole

I am trying to save the embed HTML for a youtube video into my DB so I can call it up later. I have a set-up where I enter the HTML into a textarea and then it shows me the echoed html, which should be the video but it is not displaying. I have tried all kinds of encoding decoding stuff with no change? can anyone lead me in the right direction? I have checked everywhere that I know.

If anyone knows a better way to do this I would love to hear it. Thanks.

<?php
if(!$_POST){?>

<html>

<table>

<tr>
	<td> <form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>"> Embed HTML:</td> 
    <td> <textarea rows="5" cols="50" wrap="virtual" name="embedHTML"> Enter Embed HTML Here </textarea></td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<td>Description: </td>
	<td><textarea rows="5" cols="50" wrap="physical" name="description"> Describe The Video Here </textarea></td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<td><input type="submit" value="Add Video!"></form></td>
</tr>

</table>

</html>

<?php
} else {

if (isset($_POST['embedHTML'])||isset($_POST['description']))
{
	require_once("dbConnect.php");

$embedHTML = $_POST['embedHTML'];
$videoDesc = $_POST['description'];

echo "<html>";
echo "<blockquote>";
echo $embedHTML;
echo "</blockquote>";
echo "<br />";
echo "<blockquote>";
echo $videoDesc;
echo "</blockquote>";
echo "</html>";
 }

 }

?>

WeAnswer_IT

Here's a better solution.

In programming and database design, you should always try to avoid redundancy. When I say redundancy, I mean writing the same code more than once or storing the same thing to a database more than once (if you know it's never going to change).

So, instead of storing the entire YouTube video embed HTML into your database, you just want to store the video itself.

Instead of

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OBNxRWhAuN8&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OBNxRWhAuN8&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Just store

OBNxRWhAuN8

Then, you can query your database and output whatever videos you want:

<?php

//connect to your database here
... connect ...

// query the database for vids
$result = mysql_query("SELECT videoString FROM whatever WHERE whatever");

$videos = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
    $videos[] = $row['videoString'];
}

foreach($videos as $num => $videoString)
{ 
// this is where we put our youtube video HTML

?>

<object width="425" height="355">

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/<?= $videoString ?>&amp;hl=en">

</param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param>

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/<?= $videoString ?>&amp;hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355">

</embed></object>

<?php } ?>

frijole

nice, thanks. that would save me a lot of the headache, and space. thanks a lot for responding.

WeAnswer_IT

My pleasure. Remember to click Thread Tools and hit "RESOLVED" if you are satisfied with that response.

Also, you may want to check out Google's YouTube API for displaying YouTube videos on your own site.