PHP problem with CJ product feed

[Andy]

I am working with the GUS product feeds on CJ (Kays, Argos Additions & Marshall Ward) which I receive in XML format. To extract data to populate a database, I use the $advertisercategory field which works fine when there is no ampersand within it but does not when there is:


For example, in the Kays feed for womens clothing, there is a $advertisercategory field, "shirts & blouses".

However, the if statement below will not evaluate true when it includes an ampersand while it works fine for any $advertisercategory which does not include ampersands. I have tried replacing the & with & but still does not work.

if ($advertisercategory=="shirts & blouses")

Can someone point out the solution to this please?

[ianm]

Have you tried escaping the & by putting \ in front of it?

if ($advertisercategory=="shirts \& blouses")

[Andy]

Originally posted by ianm Have you tried escaping the & by putting \ in front of it? if ($advertisercategory=="shirts \& blouses")

Yes, Ian, I've tried that but it does not help.

Thanks anyway.

[ianm]

I just tried the following bit of code -

PHP Code:

    $advertisercategory = "shirts & blouses";

    if ($advertisercategory=="shirts & blouses")
    {
        echo "1";
    } 


and it displayed the 1.

From that I would guess that the value being put into $advertisercategory might have the & encoded in some way.

Try echoing $advertisercategory to see what it holds.

Another possibility - have you got any two word categories that don't have & in them? Do they work?

[Andy]

Originally posted by ianm I just tried the following bit of code - PHP Code:     $advertisercategory = "shirts & blouses";     if ($advertisercategory=="shirts & blouses")     {         echo "1";     }  and it displayed the 1. From that I would guess that the value being put into $advertisercategory might have the & encoded in some way. Try echoing $advertisercategory to see what it holds. Another possibility - have you got any two word categories that don't have & in them? Do they work?

The ampersand in the XML file is encoded as "&" but substituting this for & makes no difference in my if statement.

Echoing $advertisercategory displays shirts & blouses.

[ianm]

Its got me stumped - I just updated my bit of code to -

PHP Code:

    $advertisercategory = "shirts & blouses";

    if ($advertisercategory=="shirts & blouses")
    {
        echo "1";
    } 


and it still echoed the 1

The only other thing I can suggest is to try encoding the string you are comparing it to -

if ($advertisercategory==htmlspecialchars("shirts & blouses"))

[Andy]

Originally posted by ianm The only other thing I can suggest is to try encoding the string you are comparing it to - if ($advertisercategory==htmlspecialchars("shirts & blouses")) [/b]

Thanks Ian. Finally solved it with help of htmlspecialchars() but I don't understand what is going on here.

PHP Code:

$html=htmlspecialchars($advertisercategory); $html=trim($html);

if ( $html=="shoes &amp+semicolonamp+semicolon boots") 


Note that amp+semicolon should be replaced with amp followed by punctuation symbol for semicolon. This message board deletes it.

Thanks for your help.