Weird Character Entity Behavior

January 3, 2004 4:36 AM

If you include a character entity in text for preview then it is displayed correctly and appears (as the appropriate character) in the edit area. However, when you click post, the character is converted to "?" (ie. posting character entities is OK, but if they're previewed then they're converted to the equivalent extended character, which is not accepted by "post").
posted by andrew cooke to bugs at 4:36 AM (5 comments total)

this was for askme, but i assume it's general.

the workarounds are:
- replace characters by the entities after previewing and before posting
- preview then use the browser back button to return to the original text
- don't try to be such a smartarse (aka the "character entities, what are those?" defense)
posted by andrew cooke at 4:38 AM on January 3, 2004

...as the 57 other metatalk threads on the subject have revealed...
posted by quonsar at 7:39 AM on January 3, 2004

they have? i thought i was involved in some of those and that things were fixed (iirc the original problem was that character entities didn't work at all). sorry if this is just a rehash.
posted by andrew cooke at 7:42 AM on January 3, 2004

it seems that the most commonly used entities, < and >, behave properly. others have to be replaced in the textarea during preview and before posting as you noted.
posted by quonsar at 8:02 AM on January 3, 2004

Andrew, my vote has always been for hobgoblins. Even so, it's always funnier when people try to say "I (heart) pancakes" but they end up saying "I ? pancakes".

That's right, brothers, never stop questioning the powers that be and their so-called breakfast cakes.
posted by Hildago at 10:50 AM on January 3, 2004