how to display whatever the user types in a textarea

[s.chelliah]

We have an input field which allows the user to enter a string of (up
to 62) ASCII printable characters. We have a need to allow the user to
be able to specify any sequence of characters he/she desires.

However, we have a problem when we attempt to display this same string
of characters. If the input sequence of characters contains HTML
interpretable strings of characters, the user's sequence of characters
is not properly displayed. (We are using <td>string</td> to display the
string.)

For example:
If the user enters "ID-12<DALLAS>\STV"
the string is displayed as "ID-12\STV"

The problem is that the text "<DALLAS>" is being interpreted as an HTML
tag. We can circumvent this problem by pre-parsing the display string
and replacing the "<" with "&lt;", resulting in the proper display of
the string.

However, there is a very long list of standard HTML characters whose
mnemonic and/or numeric representations are translated by HTML for
display purposes.

For example:
If the user enters "ID-12&iexcl;" or "ID-12¡"
the user expects the string to be displayed as "ID-12&iexcl;" or
"ID-12¡", not "ID-12!" (where the "!" actually represents an
inverted exclamation point).

We have tried to display the user's string with <PRE>string</PRE>,
<CODE>string</CODE>, <BLOCKQUOTE>string</BLOCKQUOTE> and even the
deprecated <LISTING>string</LISTING> to no avail. Even though our
reference text implies that the sequence of characters between <PRE>
and </PRE> will not be interpreted by HTML, both of our browsers (MS
and Netscape) do interpret the characters.

Is there any way to display a sequence of characters without the
browser interpreting the sequence of characters?
Thanks,
Siva

[Darin McGrew]

<s.********@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there any way to display a sequence of characters without the
browser interpreting the sequence of characters?

See http://www.htmlhelp.com/faq/html/basics.html#show-html

Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

[Benjamin Niemann]

s.********@gmail.com wrote:

The problem is that the text "<DALLAS>" is being interpreted as an HTML
tag. We can circumvent this problem by pre-parsing the display string
and replacing the "<" with "&lt;", resulting in the proper display of
the string.

However, there is a very long list of standard HTML characters whose
mnemonic and/or numeric representations are translated by HTML for
display purposes.
one, two, many ;)
There are in fact only three characters that must be encoded: '<', '>' and
'&'. A pretty long list, I must admit...
For example:
If the user enters "ID-12&iexcl;" or "ID-12¡"
the user expects the string to be displayed as "ID-12&iexcl;" or
"ID-12¡", not "ID-12!" (where the "!" actually represents an
inverted exclamation point).
It is sufficient to quote the '&' here:

User enters: "ID-12&iexcl;"
Inserted into HTML: "ID-12&amp;iexcl;"
Displayed: "ID-12&iexcl;"
We have tried to display the user's string with <PRE>string</PRE>,
<CODE>string</CODE>, <BLOCKQUOTE>string</BLOCKQUOTE> and even the
deprecated <LISTING>string</LISTING> to no avail. Even though our
reference text
Time to look for a correct reference text.
implies that the sequence of characters between <PRE>
and </PRE> will not be interpreted by HTML, both of our browsers (MS
and Netscape) do interpret the characters.

--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/