Handling Apostrophes using PHP/MySQL?

Question

Hello, what do you think is the best way to handle apostrophes in PHP/MySQL?

I’m writing an adventure game and the user can enter text. If they enter text with an apostrophe I need to strip this out or I get MySQL errors. Ideally I want to escape the apostrophe so it gets stored in the table and then when it’s retrieved the code recognises an escaped apostrophe and displays it correctly

How would you handle the input from the user and then display it back again?

Thanks!

Answer 1

mysql_real_escape_string($qry) - going in

stripslashes($result) - coming out

Answer 2

I agree with the chap above. doing a simple replace of the ' with '' tells sql that you are including an apostrophe in your text. I guess, at a puch you could stop them entering it altogether. Most people when typing into a game don't generally use correct gramma so it may be wise to strip it out altogether.



Good luck with the game.

L

Answer 3

I don't know about MySQL exactly, but I know that in Firebird (another open source DBMS), if you replace a single quote with TWO single quotes in a row, it'll escape it properly AND save the apostrophe properly in the database.



Try it out, and see how it works.