Posted by weirdstuff on 03/20/06 03:31

Hi. I have this simple code:

===========================================
->Database query here

(.. some code)

$row=mysql_fetch_array($res);

(...)

$formatting2 = $row['formatting2"];

(..)

//Echo variable from DB
echo "$formatting2";

$formatting2 = "USERNAME: %1\$s \r\nSERIAL: %2\$s \r\n\r\n";
//Echo same string - this time from an "inline" variable
echo "$formatting2";
===========================================

Ok, maybe that was overly complicated. I hope you follow anyway. Whats
happening here is that I am getting a formatted string from a database
which I throw in a variable. What you see here is my test case to
visualize the problem. Now, when I echo this variable or pass it to
printf/sprintf then I get a different result than if I "manually"
create the variable inline in my php script.

So, the first echo $formatting2 there will output:

USERNAME: %1$s \r\nSERIAL: %2$s \r\n\r\n

whilst the second shows the newlines correctly. Also printf/sprintf
barfs if I pass the string I got from the DB.

What the heck is going on here? Database returning some strange string
format?


Thanks :)

Arni Johannesson

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