# character

[Willow]

Hi,

I have this strange thing happening in my MySQL database whenever a visitor registers his/her company and in any of the fields uses the "#" character like e.g. in an address Bla Bla Street #456.

What happens is that when I back up the database with a dump file (using PHPMyAdmin) and the next time I use that backup file it will tell me that there was an error and only the rows up to that error are inserted. By trial & error I found out that the two suppliers I got this error with was because they used this character: by removing it from the back-up file I no longer had any problems re-creating the table.

Is there any way I can avoid this problem? Something like htmlspecialchars?

Another thing that happened once was that someone who registered used apostrophes in the text which normally isn't a problem, but this time in the database it got changed to something weird like "%&#". That's not exactly what it was but I can't remember now. And also that time the dump file didn't work because of the "#" character. Does this have to do with the character set their using?

Willow

[creole]

I think it's because the POUND sign is the indication of a comment tag in mySQL.

[moshe_be]

This problem is a real pain. After large research, I found that MySQL only looking for comments when you got more then one query seperated by ;

Meaning if you can seperate them good enough and run it one-by-one you will have no problem. I have made script that does a bit better job then MySQLAdmin at seperating queries and running then one-by-one. Reply if you interested in it.

[Willow]

Originally posted by creole
I think it's because the POUND sign is the indication of a comment tag in mySQL.

Right. the Pound sign - couldn't think of its real name - wonder why it's called that way.

In any event, just wondering if there isn't a SIMPLE way of escaping this character, like e.g. addslashes does with " "

Willow

[moshe_be]

No way of escaping it (at least I did not found one), only way is to run queries with it seperatly one by one.

[creole]

It's not actually called the Pound sign.

I think it's called a Hash or an octohedral or something like that. In the states everyone just calls it the POUND sign though. Don't know why.

[Anarchos]

It's also a sharp sign.

[Willow]

And in Dutch and Italian it's called "hekje" and "cancelletto", respectively, which both translate into "gate".

Go figure.

[DarkMonkey]

The only true pound sign is £

*sings british national anthem*

[7stud]

please see:

www.MilleniumDomeFiasco.com
www.MilleniumBridgeDebacle.com

and

www.HaveToGetCompetentHealthCareInGermany.com

[Owen]

dictionary.com:

hash

1. <character> "#", ASCII code 35.

Common names: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; crunch; hex; INTERCAL: mesh. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash; ITU-T: square, pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; splat.

The pronunciation of "#" as "pound" is common in the US but a bad idea; Commonwealth Hackish has its own, rather more apposite use of "pound sign" (confusingly, on British keyboards the pound graphic happens to replace "#"; thus Britishers sometimes call "#" on a US-ASCII keyboard "pound", compounding the American error). The US usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of using a "#" suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced "hash" outside the US

2. <programming> hash coding.

3. The preferred term for a Perl associative array.

(1995-03-06)

[creole]

octothorpe...

that's the one I was trying to think of.

[padders]

Originally posted by 7stud
please see:

www.MilleniumDomeFiasco.com
www.MilleniumBridgeDebacle.com

and

www.HaveToGetCompetentHealthCareInGermany.com

lol

and

www.footandmouthcrisis.com