CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpstringecho
John M.
John M.

Reputation: 2264

PHP Ampersand in String

I'm having a bit of a problem. I am trying to create an IRC bot, which has an ampersand in its password. However, I'm having trouble putting the ampersand in a string. For example...

<?php

$var = "g&abc123";

echo $var;

?>

I believe this should print g&abc123. However it's printing g.

I have tried this as well:

<?php
$arr = array("key" => "g&abc123");
print_r($arr);
?>

This prints it correctly with the g&abc123, however when I say echo $arr['key']; it prints g again. Any help would be appreciated. I'm running PHP5.3.1.

EDIT: Also, I just noticed that if I use g&abc123&abc123 it prints g&abc123. Any suggestions?

Upvotes: 10

Views: 21915

Answers (4)

MapDot
MapDot

Reputation: 11

You're probably sending your output to a Web browser.

The correct way of doing it is

In HTML, XHTML and XML, the ampersand has a special meaning. It is used for character entities. You can think of it as an escape sequence of sorts.

For instance, in PHP, this would be illegal:

$variable = 'It's Friday';

This is because the apostrophe is interpreted by PHP as the end of your string, and the rest of your content looks like garbage.

Instead, you have to say:

$variable = 'It\'s Friday';

Similarly, in HTML and XHTML, you can't say

<h1>Inequalities</h1>
<p> x<yz+3 </p>

This is because it would be interpreted as an element.

Instead, you'd have to say:

<h1>Inequalities</h1>
<p> x&lt;yz+3 </p>

Now, as you can see, the ampersand itself has a special meaning and, therefore, needs to be escaped as &. htmlspecialchars() will do it for you.

Upvotes: 1

Anax
Anax

Reputation: 9372

View the web page source to make sure your variable contains the correct value.

Upvotes: 1

Kerry Jones
Kerry Jones

Reputation: 21838

Look at the source code, it will be printing the correct code.

If you want it to print out correctly in HTML, then run htmlentities on it or make the & &amp;

Upvotes: 6

JAL
JAL

Reputation: 21563

I don't have that issue in a console:

php > $d="g&abc123";
php > echo $d;
g&abc123

What environment are you printing the output to? It sounds like you are viewing it in a web browser, and the & is being interpreted as a malformed HTML entity. Try replacing the & symbol with the entity encoded version &amp;.

Upvotes: 7

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