STUCK: Basic form submission results in unwanted escape characters, missing items etc

[marcyjo]

OK so couldn't adequately describe this in the subject.

What I'm trying to do seems like it should be a beginner's project, and I'm pleased to report that I've had some success, but I'm hoping someone can offer the guidance needed to get me over this hump.

I have a form into which I want to be able to enter some data and have it
spat out in a certain way.

Example: I want to enter some HTML code, label it with my name and the
name of whatever silly thing the HTML code is meant to display, click a button and
have that input displayed in a pre-defined format.

So here’s a demo of my progress so far:

STEP 1: The Input - http://test-tu.be/template/input03.html

Screencap: http://test-tu.be/template/input.png

NOTE: This looks vastly different in IE than in FF and I haven’t yet bothered to figure out why; I just want it to work first.

So on this page, you enter a name, a project name, and your HTML code. Pretty
much idiot-proof (unless said idiot is me).

STEP 2: The Output - http://test-tu.be/template/action03.php

Screencap:http://test-tu.be/template/output.png

If you try the form out, you'll see that the displayed code in the resulting text box is full of escape characters. I can't figure out how to make that not happen.

Also, you'll notice that there's no rendering of the HTML code that was entered. I haven't been able to get it to appear above the code.

This is a screencap of how the output should look: http://test-tu.be/template/ideal.png

Final Result:

I want the output page to be a permanent page, accessible via its own unique URL. For example, if in the input form I indicate that the page should be called swineflu.html, I want the output page to generate a new document that would be accessible permanently.

The pages linked above are live and you can play with them to observe their behavior. I've also attached the relevant files to this post. I'd really appreciate some guidance. Thanks!

[sneakyimp]

Sounds like your PHP server is configured with magic_quotes on. magic_quotes is a setting left over from the old days and is meant to provide convenience but really is just annoying. Try and get your ISP to turn it off.

If you can't, you can remove magic quotes from $POST thusly:

if(get_magic_quotes_gpc())
{
   foreach ($_POST as $key => $val)
   {
      $_POST[$key] = stripslashes($val);
   }
} 

You should probably run that bit of code before you do anything else with those variables.

If you want the HTML to be rendered in your page, you'll need to [man]echo[/man] where you want it to appear.

[marcyjo]

I'll do that first-thing this morning. Looking forward to making progress on this and I really appreciate your help!

[marcyjo]

That did the trick! Thanks so much! (: