How do you keep carriage returns in a string? 1

CGIflustered · Feb 22, 2002

Hi,

I have a form which submits some variables for processing to a HTML file. Here's how the script handles them:

# Split the name-value pairs
@pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);

foreach $pair (@pairs){
($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);

$value =~ tr/+/ /;
$value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$name =~ tr/+/ /;
$name =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;

$FORM{$name} = $value;
}

The only problem is that one variable ("comment", a TEXTAREA input) has to have the carriage returns included for what I need. When I print out "comment" now, all lines are put together like one big sentence. How do I omit this one variable from stripping the carriage returns?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

goBoating · Feb 22, 2002

Code:

<textarea name=&quot;some_name&quot; rows=&quot;5&quot; cols=&quot;40&quot;

[red]

Code:

wrap=&quot;hard&quot;

[/red]

Code:

>
Some text here.</textarea>

Try setting 'wrap' to hard in your HTML input field tags. 'hope this helps

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CGIflustered · Feb 22, 2002

goBoating,

the textarea entry input on the form itself works fine... test already wraps, and user can carriage return, but when I process it with the script above, it takes out the carriage returns and makes, text like this (all one string):

Hello.

My name is Mark.

How are you?

Look like this:

Hello. My name is Mark. How are you?

How do I get the string to remain as it was input?

Thanks again,
Mark

goBoating · Feb 22, 2002

Some HTML containing a single textarea input field with wrap='hard'.

Code:

<html>
<head><title>junk</title></head>
<body>
<form action=&quot;[URL unfurl="true"]http://server/cgi-bin/junk.cgi&quot;>[/URL]
<textarea name=&quot;area51&quot; rows='4' cols='25' wrap='hard'>
Some text here
</textarea>
<input type='submit' name='submit' value='submit'>
</form></body></html>

A piece of CGI to catch the area51 textarea input and
spit it back at the browser.

Code:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'GET') {
	$buffer = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}; 
	}
elsif ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
	read(STDIN,$buffer,$ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
	}
@pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
foreach $pair (@pairs){
   ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);

   $value =~ tr/+/ /;
   $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack(&quot;C&quot;, hex($1))/eg;
   $name =~ tr/+/ /;
   $name =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack(&quot;C&quot;, hex($1))/eg;
   $FORM{$name} = $value;
}

# Note that the stuff above is just like yours, no worrying
# about carriage returns.  They are still embedded in the
# input.
print qq(Content-type: text/html\n\n
    <html>
      <head>
        <title></title>
      </head>
      <body><p>);

# grab the area51 input text
$textarea = $FORM{'area51'};

# There are '\n's in there but, the browser does not
# obey \n, so I enclose the text in 'pre' tags.
print &quot;<pre>$textarea</pre>&quot;;

print &quot;<b>OR</b><br><br>&quot;;

# an alternate method is to put 'br' tags in with
# the \n's so the browswer knows to wrap.
$textarea =~ s/\n/<br>\n/gs;
print &quot;$textarea&quot;;
print qq(</p></body></html>);

'hope this helps

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CGIflustered · Feb 22, 2002

That's it! It worked!!

Could you break down this line for me?:

$textarea =~ s/\n/<br>\n/gs;

I understand it's putting <BR> into the generated HTML... what's the other stuff?

Thanks for all your help,
Mark

goBoating · Feb 22, 2002

the general form for a Perl regular expression
replacement is,

$var =~ s/find_this/replace_with_this/;

If $var contained a string, you could replace some
portion of the string.

$var = 'a series of words to play with words';
$var =~ s/words/terms/;

That would replace the first instance of 'word'
with 'term'. But, we need to replace all instances
of 'word', so we add the 'g' switch to make the
regex [red]g[/red]obal.

$var = 'a series of words to play with words';
$var =~ s/words/terms/[red]g[/red];

The Perl regex engine stops at line endings. If
we want our replace to work across multiple lines
add the 's' switch.

$var = "some words in a string to \n play with
so we can see which words turn into terms";

$var =~ s/words/term/gs;

So,

Code:

$textarea =~ s/\n/<br>\n/gs;
                | \    / ||
                |  \  /  | treat multiple lines as 1 string
                |   \/   run globally
                |   the replacement string is a '<br>'
                |   followed by a new line
               find new lines

'hope this helps

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CGIflustered · Feb 23, 2002

>>>hope this helps

It absolutely does. Thanks for all the help!

Mark

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How do you keep carriage returns in a string? 1

CGIflustered

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goBoating

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CGIflustered

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goBoating

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CGIflustered

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goBoating

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