backslashes stripped from product description?

I have this weird problem in which everything I tried (including doubling doubling the backslashes) doesn't solve the problem: Zen-Cart seems to strip all backslashes from the product description.

Case in question: I am trying to include in the product description the following string:> \myfileserver\mynetworkshare

Upon entering the product description (via Admin console) the backslashes disappear!

I tried entering > \\myfileserver\mynetworkshare but this didn't help.

I tried using enclosing this in PHP's specialhtmlchars() and that didn't help either - It seems that Zen-Cart strips those backslashes just before being stored in the database.

Any idea how to overcome this?

Thanks!

Have you tried using \ instead of a backslash?

Ha ha that doesn't work I will put spaces in between the characters

Have you tried using '& # 9 2 ;' ? Without the spaces, obviously!

niccol:

Have you tried using '& # 9 2 ;' ? Without the spaces, obviously!
Yes, I did - didn't help either.

Before posting here, I tried searching the subject and found only one thread - unanswered really:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80192

Is it possible that this is a bug in Zen-Cart?

I forgot to ask the obvious: Am I the only one having this problem? Can you also see (or reproduce) the problem on your systems by entering a product description with one or more backslashes?

No, it works fine on my test server. In other words if I enter\ I get a single . If I enter \\ I get two. Which is kind of what you would expect. Don't know enough about servers to really give you advice beyond that.....

niccol:

No, it works fine on my test server. In other words if I enter\ I get a single . If I enter \\ I get two. Which is kind of what you would expect.
This is what I would expect, too. Thank you Nick for your answers.

This is troubling. What could have I possibly done in my system that would have introduced this problem?

Could this be a PHP version or configuration issue? Something specific not to Zen-Cart but rather to my web host?

Do you have the backslashes disappearing when you first enter and save the text in your description? I know that if you edit a description after entering and saving it, special character formatting will often go away.

gjh42:

Do you have the backslashes disappearing when you first enter and save the text in your description?
Yes. That is exactly the case.

When I first enter 4 consecutive backslashes into the product description I can still see them intact:> \\fileserver\networkshare

Once I press the Preview button, every 2 backslashes turn into 1 - this is fine with me and I can understand and work with that:> \fileserver\networkshare

But then when I press the Update button, it seems that this "divide-by-two" process repeates:> \fileservernetworkshare
Note how the single backslash after Preview disappeared but the n after it didn't (i.e. it wasn't treated like a \n = newline but rather the backslash only disappeared).

Is this a PHP feature? A bug?

Does this happen with the standard text box for the description, or are you using the html editor text box?

wilt:

Does this happen with the standard text box for the description, or are you using the html editor text box?Standard text box for the description.

In fact, as I was trying to type my workaround here (using HTML escape characters as one might find at theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/entity-escape-characters.php) I found that the vBulletin input box here exhibits the same exact problem.

I am now convinced that this is a PHP "feature", not a Zen-Cart specific issue.

I think that I discovered where this problem comes from. In includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_product_free_shipping_info_display.php (line 80) the product description is echoed through a stripslashes() filter:

 <!--bof Product description -->
<?php if ($products_description != '') { ?>
<div id="productDescription" class="freeShip biggerText"><?php echo stripslashes($products_description); ?></div>
<?php } ?>
<!--eof Product description -->

I am sure that this stripslashes() filter was placed there for a good reason. Can you shed some light on this?

It got me curious why you were seeing a different effect from me so I had a look. This quote from the php manual may be the reason:

Note: If magic_quotes_sybase is on, no backslashes are stripped off but two apostrophes are replaced by one instead.

scatzc:

I think that I discovered where this problem comes from. In includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_product_free_shipping_info_display.php (line 80) the product description is echoed through a stripslashes() filter:

This "feature" is driving me nuts. Before hacking the PHP code to get rid of this, I would appreciate an explanation of the design consideration that led to placing stripslashes() there. I am assuming, of course, that it is not a bug but rather a thoughtful feature.

Thanks.

niccol:

Note: If magic_quotes_sybase is on, no backslashes are stripped off but two apostrophes are replaced by one instead.
Update: I managed to workaround the problem (I am leery about hacking stable code that has been running for years, without fully understanding design considerations):

I have been able to output a single backslash on the product description page by entering in the source HTML 8 consecutive bacslashes (eight!).

For two adjacent backslashes I had to enter 16 consecutive bacslashes...

Pretty amazing.