str_replace not working?

Must be missing something here but str_replace isnt working for me, take this simple example,

PHP Code:

---

<?php

$a = "http://somesite.com/index.cfm?&user=24706091";
$b = str_replace("&","&amp;",$a);
echo $b;

?>

---

Result is still the original url whereas it should be,

http://somesite.com/index.cfm?&user=24706091

:confused:

Did you look at the source code? an & in HTML is viewed as &. It may have changed it but it wouldn't be noticable to you.

try preg_replace ( mixed pattern, mixed replacement, mixed subject)

ex:

PHP Code:

---

<?php 

$a = "http://somesite.com/index.cfm?&user=24706091"; 
$b = preg_replace("&","&amp;",$a); 
echo $b; 

?>

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jmacp

Must be missing something here but str_replace isnt working for me, take this simple example,

PHP Code:

---

<?php

$a = "http://somesite.com/index.cfm?&user=24706091";
$b = str_replace("&","&amp;",$a);
echo $b;

?>

---

Result is still the original url whereas it should be,

http://somesite.com/index.cfm?&user=24706091

:confused:

---

That code works fine, like kasracer said check the source. You should also be careful when creating url with & inside, it can cause some things you didnt expect to happen, use urlencode to make sure that you get the exact values you want from the query stirng

Its also worth noting that there is a function. htmlspecialchars() which converts all HTML meta characters to their entity equivilents.

The replacement you made inserts a literal ampersand into the query string. Like John has pointed out, you need to use urlencode() on this instead of escaping it as html, a URL encoded string is valid in an HTML attribute string and shouldn't need further escaping.