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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T13:45:08+00:00

When I use PHP to set the value of a HTML form input element,

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When I use PHP to set the value of a HTML form input element, it works fine provided I don’t have any spaces in the data.

<input type="text" name="username"
<?php echo (isset($_POST['username'])) ? "value = ".$_POST["username"] : "value = \"\""; ?> />

If I enter “Jonathan” as the username, it is repeated back to me as expected. If I enter “Big Ted”, however, I only get “Big” repeated back when I submit the form.

Note that the $_POST["Username"] variable is correct; when I echo it using PHP, it is set to “Big Ted”.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Quote it. Otherwise the space will just become an attribute separator and everything after spaces will be seen as element attributes. Rightclick page in webbrowser and view source. It should not look like this (also see syntax highlight colors):

    <input value=Big Ted>

    but rather this

    <input value="Big Ted">

    Not to mention that this would still break when someone has a quote in his name (and your code is thus sensitive to XSS attacks). Use htmlspecialchars().

    Kickoff example:

    <input value="<?php echo (isset($_POST['username']) ? htmlspecialchars($_POST['username']) : ''); ?>">
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