Need help creating a php program that echoes code

Question

I am creating a program that is supposed to take a code input from the user and it will match it with some other sample code, and once it is done it will print the users input code. The part that I am having trouble with is when I print the users code, everything is printed but instead of indents and line breaks, this is being printed:

<!DOCTYPE html>\r\n <script src=\"https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.0.0.min.js\" integrity=\"sha256-JmvOoLtYsmqlsWxa7mDSLMwa6dZ9rrIdtrrVYRnDRH0=\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"></script>\r\n<html>\r\n <head>\r\n <meta charset=\"utf-8\" />\r\n <title>CodeType</title>\r\n   </head>\r\n <body>

whereas this is the input (and what I want as the final result):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<script   src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.0.0.min.js"   integrity="sha256-JmvOoLtYsmqlsWxa7mDSLMwa6dZ9rrIdtrrVYRnDRH0="   crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<html>
     <head>
         <meta charset="utf-8" />
         <title>CodeType</title>
     </head>
   <body>

Here is my code:

        <?php include "database.php"; ?>
        <?php

    if(isset($_POST['submit'])){
        $title = mysqli_real_escape_string($con, $_POST['title']);
        $code =  mysqli_real_escape_string($con, $_POST['code']);
        $samplecode = mysqli_real_escape_string($con, $_POST['samplecode']);

        $query = "INSERT INTO `assignments` (`title`, `code`) VALUES ('$title', '$code')";

        $cleanCode = str_replace( "\r\n", "<br/>" , htmlentities($code));
        if(mysqli_query($con, $query)){
            if($code = $samplecode){
                echo $cleanCode;
            }
        } else {
            echo "fails";
        }
    }

   ?>

    <body>

    <br/>
        <form method = "post" action = "">
            <label id = "title">Title</label>
            <br/>
            <input type="text" class="txtInput" name = "title"/>
            <br/>
            <br/>
            <label id = "stuff">Code</label>
            <br/>
            <textarea placeholder="Type your code in here" name = "code"></textarea>
            <br/>
            <br/>
            <br/>
            <label id = "samplecode">Sample testing</label>
            <br/>
            <textarea placeholder="Type your test code in here" name = "samplecode"></textarea>
            <br/>
            <input type="submit" name = "submit" value="Submit"/>

            <pre><?php echo $cleanCode ?></pre> 
        </form>

    </body>
    <script>
        $(document).ready(function(){
            $('.txtInput').bind("paste",function(e) {
                  e.preventDefault();
            });
            $( "button" ).on( "click", function(){
                if($(#txtInput).text() == $(#code).text()){
                    alert("Working");
                } else {
                    alert("Failure");
                }
            });
        });

    </script>

</html>

Any ideas?

Try this: change `$cleanCode = str_replace( "\r\n", "
" , htmlentities($code));` to this `$cleanCode = str_replace( "\n", "
" , htmlentities($_POST['code']));` — J. Allan, Jun 28 '16 at 23:08
If you get the chance (and I was a help to you), I'd appreciate if you accepted my answer. :D (It will also alert other people to the fact that this question is solved.) — J. Allan, Jun 28 '16 at 23:36

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

Background Info:

Like C, PHP presumably (said that way because I haven't found a reference for it yet...) converts \r\n / \n to just an \n.
(Different sequences are used for a newline depending on the OS.)
mysqli_real_escape_string() escapes \r and \n, among others.

What that means:

We don't need to replace \r\n; rather, we should replace \n.
Since mysqli_real_escape_string() escapes our newline characters, we need to use $_POST['code']; for anything that is not database related.

TL;DR

$cleanCode = str_replace( "\r\n", "<br/>" , htmlentities($code));

should be:

$cleanCode = str_replace( "\n", "<br/>" , htmlentities($_POST['code']));

I have used your code snippet, but I still get the same problem. Any other suggestions? — sahmed, Jun 28 '16 at 23:02

Need help creating a php program that echoes code

1 Answers1