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S
Skinny Guy 76
Participating Frequently
May 17, 2007
Question

PHP/MySQL field recognize carriage returns?

  • May 17, 2007
  • 4 replies
  • 3725 views
I'm a novice PHP/MySQL database driven site builder. I need to have users enter text into a field with carriage returns and have the database recognize and store those carriage returns so it displays when the data is displayed on a PHP page.

How do I do this and please keep it simple?
Do I need to use a particular type of MySQL datafield?
Will I be able to use the same code on an "update" page?
This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

N
Newsgroup_User
Inspiring
May 18, 2007
On Thu, 17 May 2007 21:37:49 +0000 (UTC), "VVebbie"
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> Generally you will need to escape this a varying number of times depending on
>how many times the string is going to be parsed. For example, when writing java
>regular expressions, you need to double or even triple-escape some characters.
>For example, a literal backslash is encoded as:


You could stuff a hundred newlines into the string and the browser would
still collapse that whitespace. Use the nl2br() function to replace the
newlines that are stored in the field with <br /> tags as was suggested
in the other replies.

Gary
V
VVebbie
Participating Frequently
May 18, 2007
Well, i've covered the storage aspect and you've covered retrieval, so it's all good.
N
Newsgroup_User
Inspiring
May 17, 2007
geschenk wrote:
> <?php echo nl2br($row_queryname['field_name']); ?>

nl2br() is now built into Dreamweaver CS3 in the Dynamic Text format menu.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/
Günter_Schenk
Günter_Schenk
Inspiring
May 17, 2007
>>
so it displays when the data is displayed on a PHP page
>>

if you just need to replace the \n - type line breaks generated by multiline textareas with <br /> on a page, just use PHP´s native "nl2br" (new line to break) function:

<?php echo nl2br($row_queryname['field_name']); ?>
S
Skinny Guy 76Author
Participating Frequently
May 18, 2007
quote:
Originally posted by: geschenk
>>
so it displays when the data is displayed on a PHP page
>>

if you just need to replace the \n - type line breaks generated by multiline textareas with <br /> on a page, just use PHP´s native "nl2br" (new line to break) function:

<?php echo nl2br($row_queryname['field_name']); ?>


That works... sort of...

When I use the update page to modify the entry it puts the proper "br" code in it's proper place. However when I return to that page to edit the text again (as my customer likely will), it displays the "br" code in the text field, and if I submit the update with the "br" code in place, it duplicates the "br" code again, so I get double "br" statements. How do I get the update field to read the "br" code back as carriage returns?

In addition, my insert page uses the following code to write the original entry, and I'm not sure where to place the "nl2br" statement in the following query (generated by WebAsssist DW extensions):

<?php
// WA Application Builder Insert
if (isset($_POST["Insert_x"])) // Trigger
{
$WA_connection = $nm_connect;
$WA_table = "tb_news";
$WA_sessionName = "WADA_Insert_tb_news";
$WA_redirectURL = "tb_news_Results.php";
$WA_keepQueryString = false;
$WA_indexField = "id";
$WA_fieldNamesStr = "sort|s_head|s_text|head|subhead|bodytext|photoid|photocaption|name|phone|email|linktitle|linkaddress|show_pfm|show_arch|show_cab";
$WA_fieldValuesStr = "".((isset($_POST["sort"]))?$_POST["sort"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["s_head"]))?$_POST["s_head"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["s_text"]))?$_POST["s_text"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["head"]))?$_POST["head"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["subhead"]))?$_POST["subhead"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["bodytext"]))?$_POST["bodytext"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["photoid"]))?$_POST["photoid"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["photocaption"]))?$_POST["photocaption"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["name"]))?$_POST["name"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["phone"]))?$_POST["phone"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["email"]))?$_POST["email"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["linktitle"]))?$_POST["linktitle"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["linkaddress"]))?$_POST["linkaddress"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["show_pfm"]))?$_POST["show_pfm"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["show_arch"]))?$_POST["show_arch"]:"") ."" . "|" . "".((isset($_POST["show_cab"]))?$_POST["show_cab"]:"") ."";
$WA_columnTypesStr = "none,none,NULL|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|',none,''|none,none,NULL|none,none,NULL|none,none,NULL";
$WA_fieldNames = explode("|", $WA_fieldNamesStr);
$WA_fieldValues = explode("|", $WA_fieldValuesStr);
$WA_columns = explode("|", $WA_columnTypesStr);
$WA_connectionDB = $database_nm_connect;
mysql_select_db($WA_connectionDB, $WA_connection);
if (!session_id()) session_start();
$insertParamsObj = WA_AB_generateInsertParams($WA_fieldNames, $WA_columns, $WA_fieldValues, -1);
$WA_Sql = "INSERT INTO " . $WA_table . " (" . $insertParamsObj->WA_tableValues . ") VALUES (" . $insertParamsObj->WA_dbValues . ")";
$MM_editCmd = mysql_query($WA_Sql, $WA_connection) or die(mysql_error());
$_SESSION[$WA_sessionName] = mysql_insert_id();
if ($WA_redirectURL != "") {
if ($WA_keepQueryString && $WA_redirectURL != "" && isset($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]) && $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"] !== "" && sizeof($_POST) > 0) {
$WA_redirectURL .= ((strpos($WA_redirectURL, '?') === false)?"?":"&").$_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"];
}
header("Location: ".$WA_redirectURL);
}
}
?>
Günter_Schenk
Günter_Schenk
Inspiring
May 18, 2007
well, maybe I should have explained this better :: nl2br is *only* to be used on the page that´s displaying the field´s contents *to the website visitors* -- not in your forms !

>>
However when I return to that page to edit the text again (as my customer likely will), it displays the "br" code in the text field
>>

...and that´s what should not happen -- it seems that you additionally applied nl2br to the textarea of your "update" form as well (e.g. <?php echo nl2br($row_queryname['fieldname']); ?>), true ?

If yes, please delete that -- means your textarea needs to look like this:

<textarea name="whatever" id="whatever" cols="50" rows="5"><?php echo $row_queryname['fieldname']; ?></textarea>
V
VVebbie
Participating Frequently
May 17, 2007
'\n' is the character return escape sequence (think \newline).

Generally you will need to escape this a varying number of times depending on how many times the string is going to be parsed. For example, when writing java regular expressions, you need to double or even triple-escape some characters. For example, a literal backslash is encoded as:
"\\\\"
After this is parsed to a string, the Pattern class sees:
"\\"
Which is translated to:
"\"

It's been a while since i've done LAMP work, but I would hazard a guess that you need to double-escape your newlines when building your query.

Using concatenation, this would look like:
$query .= $rest_of_query . '\\n';

This way the ACTUAL STRING passed to MYSQL is something like "Line 1.\nLine 2.", with the characters '\' and 'n', not a newline - you want this because MYSQL itself will probably parse the string again.

Play around with it and see what happens. You may need to apply a similar process when extracting it - something like:
str_replace($result, '\n', '\\n');
to get it to display properly.
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