Trying to count characters after submitting a comment, mb_strlen gives back weird results

Question

In my controller, I access the comment data with $this->request->data['Comment']['text']. I use CakePHP's formhelper to build the form, and a plugin called Summernote to transform the textarea into a WYSIWYG editor. I save the comment as HTML in my database.

In this case, I am trying to submit a comment with just '>'

$data = $this->request->data['Comment']['text'];

pr($data);
//returns >

pr(mb_strlen($data, utf-8));
//returns 4

pr(mb_strlen('>', utf-8));
//returns 1
//that is the one that confuses me the most, 
//it seems that there's a difference between $data and '>'

mb_detect_encoding($data);
//returns ASCII

I'm already using jQuery to check the number of characters entered on the front-end, so I can deactivate the submit-button when the user goes over the limit. This uses .innerText.length and works like a charm, but if I make that the only check people can just go into the element editor and re-enable the submit button to send however long comments they like.

EDIT: var_dump($this->request->data['Comment']['text']) gave me the following result:

Note that unlike in the examples above, I am trying to send '>>>' here

array (size=1)
  'text' => string '&gt;&gt;&gt;' (length=12)

EDIT: Alex_Tartan figured out the problem: I needed to do html_entity_decode() on my string before counting it with mb_strlen()!

It would be useful to know what you entered into the field on the form! — RiggsFolly, Jan 17 '17 at 11:37
have you tried using print_r() instead of pr()? EDIT : It has to be something with the encoding -> check this [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13015317/php-mb-strlen-return-value-is-weird) — Antonios Tsimourtos, Jan 17 '17 at 11:40

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

0

I've tested the case here: https://3v4l.org/VLr9e

What might be the case is an untrimmed $data (white spaces won't show up in regular print - you can use var_dump($data)).

The textarea tag will enclose formatting spaces into the value.
Check out Why is textarea filled with mysterious white spaces?

so for that, you can do:

$data = '>   ';
$data = trim($data);
// var_dump(data) will output: 
// string(4) ">   "

echo $data."\n";
//returns >

echo mb_strlen($data, 'UTF-8')."\n";
//returns 1

echo mb_strlen('>', 'UTF-8')."\n";
//returns 1

Update (from comments):

The problem was encoded html characters which needed to be decoded:

$data = html_entity_decode($data);

edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

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answered Jan 17 '17 at 11:56

Alex Tartan

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var_dump($this->request->data) actually gave me something interesting: (I'll include it in and edit in the main post) – Danny de Jong Jan 17 '17 at 12:00
well, one '>' is transformed into a '>', but where do the other two come from? also, you might want to `html_entity_decode($data)` – Alex Tartan Jan 17 '17 at 12:03
html_entity_decode was what I needed! Thanks a bunch for the help! Also in between posting I retried submitting the form with '>>>' instead of '>', which is where the other two '>' came from. Again, thanks! – Danny de Jong Jan 17 '17 at 12:06

Trying to count characters after submitting a comment, mb_strlen gives back weird results

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