DB insert and charset

[MHALL1]

Hi,

I have a 'trading name' input box and if the '&' symbol is entered, this is written to the database as '& amp;'.
I then run a check that if the current value doesn't match what's in the DB, update the entry.
Currently it always thinks that they don't match (even though the do if I dump the variable).
If I update the & amp; to &; in phpMyAdmin the issue goes away.
Is there a way I can force either the insert or update classes to write it as & rather than '& amp;'?

Hope that makes sense,

Cheers

[MHALL1]

I've worked around this by us the below:

Code:

$trading_name = str_replace("&(amp)","&",$trading_name);

[Brandin]

Thanks for posting your workaround, Matt!

I think a better solution would be to allow the DB to insert the special character value (&amp) and on your comparison, use htmlspecialchars.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php

[MHALL1]

Thanks, took of couple of extra lines to create additional variables but have now taken that approach