eregi query

[Anon]

what I want to do it to take a string out of a mysql database,and strip allhtml/ email tags that have been inserted in.

So I have text similar to
\'<a href=\"mailto:[e-mail]\">[e-mail]</a>\'

and I want it turn into just \'[e-mail]\'. Obviously the actual email addresses or web addresses will vary.

I have used eregi_replace before with success,but here the stuff that needs to be stripped or replaced will vary.(as emails vary).

With eregi edit can you use wildcards- somthing like \"<a href=\"mailto:*\"></a>?

#Ultimately what I am trying to acheive is this-

I have an \'add\' form into my database which adds special charaters, <br> lines etc.However when I pull down the record into my \'edit\' page , it also pulls down the special formatting I have done- which is fine,but when I update the record ,it parses through the process again.This results in all my urls, emails and <br> lines doubling.

So I reckoned that if I stripped them out for the editing view and then reapplied the formatting to the whole string as I update the database this wouldbe the best courseof action.

Any ideas?

[Anon]

I would suggest not adding the formatting to the db in that case and only ad it on display. This avoids the issue all together.

So, on submit, don't parse it. This way edit/modify stay the same basically.

When you display, add the new line to br conversion, auto link urls etc. This is what I do for most of my db stuff.

Plus if you decide to change your formatting later, you don't have to update your entire db, just your viewer script. This also works in case you want to have multiple "outputs" for viewing like printer friendly, pda etc.

Just an option.

[bobbisson]

Probably you should use $str=strip_tags($str). Also, when putting info to database don't forget to ereg_replace("'","''",$str).

P.S. Don't use addslashes() 'cause you'll get those slashes back! (like in your and my posts).