Input field containing double quotes value

Question

In my PHP project I have a value containing special characters like ",', etc. (" 5 " inches, '3.5' inches, etc.). But it does not appear in a text field. How can I display this?

Is it possible to display this value in a text box?

Answer 1

Use htmlentities:

<input value="<?php echo htmlentities($value);?>"> 

Answer 2

I suppose your "text box" is an HTML <input> element?

If so, you are displaying it using something like this:

echo '<input name="..." value="' . $yourValue . '" />'; 

If it's the case, you need to escape the HTML that's contained in your variable, with htmlspecialchars:

echo '<input name="..." value="' . htmlspecialchars($yourValue) . '" />'; 

Note that you might have to add a couple of parameters, especially to specify the encoding your are using.

This way, considering $yourValue has been initialized like this :

$yourValue = '5 " inches'; 

You'll get from this generated HTML:

<input name="..." value="5 " inches" /> 

To that one, which works much better:

<input name="..." value="5 &quot; inches" />