note 88490 added to function.htmlspecialchars-decode

If you use htmlspecialchars() to change things like the ampersand (&) into it's HTML equivalent (&amp;), you might run into a situation where you mistakenly pass the same string to the function twice, resulting in things appearing on your website like, as I call it, the ampersanded amp; "&amp;". Clearly nobody want's "&amp;" on his or her web page where there is supposed to be just an ampersand. Here's a quick and easy trick to make sure this doesn't happen: <?php $var = "This is a string that could be passed to htmlspecialchars multiple times."; if (htmlspecialchars_decode($var) == $var) { $var = htmlspecialchars($var); } echo $var; ?> Now, if your dealing with text that is a mixed bag (has HTML entities and non-HTML entities) you're on your own. ---- Server IP: 64.71.164.2 Probable Submitter: 2002:4ada:c1c6:0:21b:63ff:fe06:6e39 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars-decode.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/88490 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/88490 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/88490 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php