str_replace() from MySQL Lookup Table

[DonP]

I've created a table containing certain international characters along with the associated code (ie: 130 | é) so that I can automatically replace them in HTML content as it is being inserted into another table.

$result = mysql_query('SELECT CharacterName, CharacterCode FROM charactercodes');
   while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
      $CharacterName = $row('CharacterName');
      $CharacterCode = "&#" . trim($row('CharacterCode')) . ";";
      $BodyText = str_replace($CharacterName, $CharacterCode, $BodyText);
	}

The variable $BodyText contains the HTML but for some reason that's probably obvious (though I'm not seeing it), the characters are being replaced by , or other characters that are not even in the table. This line:

$CharacterCode = "&#" . trim($row('CharacterCode')) . ";";

seems to be the culprit. I tried escaping the ; and & but then it inserts the escape character WITH the , or other character. What I am I doing wrong?

Don

http://www.pc-homepage.com/

http://www.personalzone.net/

Experienced in HTML, Perl, PHP, VBScript, PWS, IIS and Apache and MS-Access, MS-SQL, MySQL databases

 

[steven290]

i believe your problem is you are () instead []

try

$row['CharacterName']

instead of

$row('CharacterName')

 

[DonP]

You're absolutely right but that's not the problem. I am using an IDE for site development and am not really using either

$row['CharacterName']

OR

$row('CharacterName')

but rather a built-in one that looks more like this

$DBconnection1->f("CharacterName")

I tried to give real-world PHP for the posting above but haven't done it in so long I had forgotten! No, the problem isn't there but thanks for letting me know of the error.

Don

http://www.pc-homepage.com/

http://www.personalzone.net/

Experienced in HTML, Perl, PHP, VBScript, PWS, IIS and Apache and MS-Access, MS-SQL, MySQL databases

 

[SimonSellick]

Hi,

1) If you assign the two columns to PHP variables and inspect them during the loop, do you get the results you would expect? That is, does the right code go with each name and do they both look like strings (of 1 character in the case of the name column)?

2) I believe that PHP has unusual rules for interpreting numbers - if there is a leading zero it is interpreted as a string, whilst with no leading zero, a decimal integer is assumed. Might this behaviour be affecting the result of assembling $CharacterCode?

 

[DonP]

This function enacts only when I save an entry through a form (and does other, more simple things than this too) but I've just modified it a bit save the results to a session that I can view using another script that I already have. Good idea and it does indeed show a mismatch!

The column with the Character Code does begin with zero in some cases but it is a varchar field and is being treated as such. That is, the code should simply be getting its value rather than evaluating it.

Don

http://www.pc-homepage.com/

http://www.personalzone.net/

Experienced in HTML, Perl, PHP, VBScript, PWS, IIS and Apache and MS-Access, MS-SQL, MySQL databases

 

[DonP]

Is it possible that CharacterCode is some kind of reserved word? It is giving the oddest results. The column on the left, which is in part what the loop is inserting should be numbers, not characters. Some of these are not even in the table so it seems that it is somehow converting them to these odd codes which explains the problem:

Œ = = î
? = = ì
¤ = = ñ
¥ = = Ñ
Ò = = Ò
Ó = = Ó
Ô = = Ô
Õ = = Õ
¢ = = ó
£ = = ú
? = = ü
Å = = Å
† = = å

Don

http://www.pc-homepage.com/

http://www.personalzone.net/

Experienced in HTML, Perl, PHP, VBScript, PWS, IIS and Apache and MS-Access, MS-SQL, MySQL databases

 

[DonP]

The solution turned out to be easy. I replaced this

$CharacterCode = "&#" . trim($row('CharacterCode')) . ";";
$BodyText = str_replace($CharacterName, $CharacterCode, $BodyText);

with this

$BodyText = str_replace($CharacterName, htmlentities(stripslashes($CharacterName)), $BodyText);

I had thought of using htmlentities() before but thought it would change < and > and other things it shouldn't. It only just occurred to me to do it only on those characters that were in my table. stripslashes() may not have been necessary but I added it just to be safe.

Don

http://www.pc-homepage.com/

http://www.personalzone.net/

Experienced in HTML, Perl, PHP, VBScript, PWS, IIS and Apache and MS-Access, MS-SQL, MySQL databases

 

[SimonSellick]

Thanks for posting the answer Don. Can anyone explain the behaviour?