Slight problem with slashes

[Mark T.]

As the topic says, I have a slight problem with slashes. I have inserted a piece of text, typed in Word, into a table in MySQL. I want the text to appear in a .php-file. This all works quite well. The HTML-tags, I included in the site do their job, except for the links.

When I have a piece of code like the one below, I seem to get no effect from the stripslashes function:

<a href=\"contact.php\">Contact</a>

There is nothing wrong with the PHP coding, the text just appears normally. I declared the variable in the following way:

$about = $result[text];
$about = stripslashes($about); 

Can someone tell me what terrible mistake I am making?

[seanf]

You do not need to escape "s in HTML if it is being stored in the database, only if it is in the PHP script

Sean

[Mark T.]

Well, without all the addslashes() and stripslashes() I have the same effect. The link points to the page |contact.php| instead of to contact.php.

What would be the cause of this then?

[seanf]

Could you show us the code and the text you are grabbing from the db?

Sean

[seanf]

The problem is simple:

You are using ” instead of " (shift and 2 yeah)

Moderators: Take a look at that thread. The code he posted completely screwed vB and you can not reply to the thread.

Sean

[Mark T.]

I did seem to be able to get to the reply-screen after posting that gigantic piece of code, but I deleted it anyway, to prevent any problems.

[Mark T.]

I don't quite get that, what did I do wrong? In stead of " I should use what?

I mean <tag attribute="property"> seems like normal HTML-syntax to me ...

[seanf]

Look closer:

” and "

One is angled the other is straight. This is the problem, I am 100% positive, without a doubt. I tried it.

Sean

[seanf]

You could get to it, but the buttons were not there so you could not reply. Stupid vB

Sean

[Mark T.]

Okay, I get it now. Thanks, I think I have the problem pinned down now. My guess is that is has something to do with the fact that I used Word to type the piece of text.

Just checked it. In my MySQL-DB the quotation marks are not in italic, so that is not the problem.

[seanf]

It is the porblem!

I copied all of the code you posted and had the same problems with the links (|contact.php|).

When I changed the quotation marks (in the text stored in the db) everything was fine

Sean

[Mark T.]

So, I should change the quotation marks, which are in my DB not in italic, into new ones, and that should solve it?

Okay, I may be a little slow of understanding, but this I will give it a go. I still don't get how that could have happened and how this solution should change it, but we will see.

Thanks for putting up with me though .

[Mark T.]

Magical indeed...

I seem to have no grasp on reality anymore. I replaced the quotation marks with new ones, and it looked exactly the same in the database, but when I looked to the ouput, the | | were gone ....

Okay, I am really going insane now!

[seanf]

Edit:

oops!

[Mark T.]

I think you got my post wrong. The problem had been solved. I just copied the Word-doc to Notepad, and then into my MySQL-table, and that seemed to do the tric.

I was just amazed, because I used phpMyAdmin, and I didn't see any italics, or my eyes must be fooling me. Anyway, I won't start thinking about a possible cause for that, I am just glad it is all fixed.

On to the next page, and thus to the next bug !

[seanf]

Yeah, sorry Rafe I was just about to edit my post but I had to drive my Dad into town!

My suggestion would be to use notepad in the future

Sean

[Mark T.]

I will gladly take that suggestion. I will be using Word for the original typing of the text, and then spell check it. As you can see beneath my avatar, I live in Holland, and my English is quite well, but not superb and I like the idea of spell-error-free articles on my new site.
After that I will copy it to Notepad and from here place it in my database.
Thanks for todays help though, and count on me having some other problem somewhere tomorrow !

[freakysid]

I don't use Word very often. However I'm pretty sure that there is an option that you can set to use or not use "smart quotes". Smart quotes are the qoutes that curl around your qouted text like tiny 66 and 99 if you know what I mean. You just want plain old ASCII text. You could probably achieve this by saving the doc as a ASCII txt doc or by changing the "smart quotes" setting.

[Mark T.]

The Word-Notepad-database way may be a long way, but I can live with that. It keeps me free from such things like smart quotes, so that my pages will look clean and are clear-coded.

Thanks for the tip though .

[Hierophant]

You could get a tool like Textpad (www.textpad.com) that has built in Spellchecking, then you wouldn't need to go from Word-Notepad-Database...

Or you could simply choose Save As... from the file menu in Word and save your articles as Text (.txt) which strips out all the formatting including smart quotes.

[Mark T.]

Originally posted by W. Luke
Or you could simply choose Save As... from the file menu in Word and save your articles as Text (.txt) which strips out all the formatting including smart quotes.

That is what I like about SitePoint. I am a guy that tends to forget very logical solutions to a problem and is always trying to fix things the difficult way. It is a great teacher though, but I need a community with people like here on SitePoint to point me towards the obvious direction.

Thanks for that pointer !