validating textarea using php

hi

i need to validate textarea of a html form using php

<textarea name="comments" cols="26" rows="3" id="comments"><?php echo($comments);?></textarea>

presently my php code to validate the text area is

if($comments == "" )
{
$error.="<br>Please enter your comments";
}

with this code if a user hits the space bar once or couple of times as a matter of fact there are no characters entered by the user i do not want this to happen, if a user simply hits the spacebar and does not type anything i should be able to display an alert message.

please advice how i can change the above php code.

thanks.

Try using this instead:

if ( strlen ( trim ( $comments ) ) == 0 )

I really hope you are taking the proper security measures with your php. From what you posted it looks like you are using register_globals which is a security risk. And if you are putting this stuff into a database and aren't escaping anything then you are open to sql injection.

Relax, aero meister. I didnt see any mysql there. ;-)

Relax, aero meister. I didnt see any mysql there. ;-)

I know that, and thats why I said "if".

Could also suggest:


if(!preg_match('/\S/', $comments))