Spacing issue in a html string

Question

On my website I have a section with announcements and now I'm working at a tool which will allow moderators to edit or post new announcements. When a moderator posts an announcement he has a form with an input for the title and a textbox for the content of the article. I use nl2br() function (to insert HTML line breaks before all newlines) in the variable which contains the content of the article. So when I insert an article in the database it will look like this:

First row ...<br />Second row.<br /><br />Regards,<br />Moderators team

When a moderator wants to edit an article I have a textbox which containes the article:

<textarea name="body" maxlength="1000" cols="105" rows="10"><?php echo str_replace('<br />', "\n", $content); ?></textarea>

If the moderator click save button (whithout making any modification) the article becomes something like this (the number of
tags doubles):

First row ...<br /><br />Second row.<br /><br /><br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Moderators team

Can anybody help me to fix this.

It looks like it has been through the nl2br() function for a second time. — IsisCode
– IsisCode, Commented Feb 20, 2012 at 19:52
you shouldn't insert the html breaks in to the db, but add them when displaying the article. — user557846
– user557846, Commented Feb 20, 2012 at 19:53

Basti · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-20 19:58:54Z

1

The problem is nl2br: Inserts HTML line breaks before all newlines in a string http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.nl2br.php

So after nl2br you will have both the newlines and the <br />-tags

Try $content = preg_replace("~\r?\n~", "<br />", $content);, which replaces newlines instead.

answered Feb 20, 2012 at 19:58

Basti

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BenOfTheNorth · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-20 19:52:13Z

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When you save to the database, don't convert the new lines. If you only convert them when you present in the HTML page on the fly, you won't need to convert them back when you echo out to a textarea instead.

answered Feb 20, 2012 at 19:52

BenOfTheNorth

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m0skit0 · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-20 20:02:25Z

0

Do not replace newlines when saving to DB.

edited Feb 20, 2012 at 20:02

answered Feb 20, 2012 at 19:52

m0skit0

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2 Comments

Damien Pirsy Over a year ago

From where do you infere he's not escaping the inputs? :o

Basti Over a year ago

this also depends on the method used to insert. if he uses prepared statements, there won't be any problem with inserting direct input.

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