murfitUK Posted November 12, 2006 Share Posted November 12, 2006 As usual, my question is a bit vague but I'll try and explain as best I can! Wonder if this would better go in the php forum?I am using a textarea in a form which I want to populate with info from a database. This all works fine:print "<textarea name='display' cols='40' rows='6'>" . $codeSnippet . "</textarea>";The codeSnippet will have things like "This is <b>bold</b> text" which I want displayed exactly like that. I don't have to worry about stripping slashes and cleaning the data because the database is read only.The problem is that sometimes it is not clear that there is a space if it is at the end of the line. This is particularly the case with tags like <br /> where there is a space between the <br and the />. What I would like to do is display the tiny little dot in place of the spaces - you know in Word you can switch on the non-printing characters and it shows the spaces, new lines, carriage returns etc (although I'm only interested in the spaces).Is there a (quick and easy) way to do this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhaslip Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 add that where the space should be. It is called a non-breaking space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesh Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Check out the replace method of the javascript String object:http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_replace.asp var test = "This is a test.";test = test.replace(/\s/g, ".");// test will equal "This.is.a.test."; Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tantachar07 Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 add that where the space should be. It is called a non-breaking space. Where do i find that lesson? url?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .You could use <pre></pre> tags.Where do i find that lesson? url?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .You could use <pre></pre> tags.(remove)u could use <pre></pre> tags . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reportingsjr Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 No, if you g to word and hit the paragraph button it will change all spaces into periods. Not pre, that just doesnt change spaces to nothing. If you want to do it using php use this: $codeSnippet = str_replace(" ", ".", $codeSnippet);print "<textarea name='display' cols='40' rows='6'>" . $codeSnippet . "</textarea>"; and it will be done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfitUK Posted November 14, 2006 Author Share Posted November 14, 2006 Thanks everyone - using the str_replace works the best.I also found out that the character I wanted is called "middle dot" and has the code & m i d d o t or & # 1 8 3 ;. (Sorry - had to put spaces in between the characters as previewed and found that the codes had been replaced with the little dot!)The function str_replace(" ", & # 1 8 3; , $codeSnippet) with no quote marks around the & # 1 8 3 ;gives exactly what I need.This·is·what·it·looks·like·with·a·little·middle·dot.HOWEVER...... (life is never easy)Now that there are no spaces it treats it as a big long line of text with no natural breaks for it to start on a new line. This results in a horizontal scrollbar, with just one line of text at the top of the box.I think I will have to count the characters and stick a <br /> after every 40 or so, although not sure if it will work in a textarea. Will soon find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reportingsjr Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 Nope! It wont work in a textarea, the newline character may. Try \n and see if it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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