How could avoid blank spaces to be saved to the DB? - php

Question

I've been trying to save some input to a DB using jquery. I'd like to prevent the user filling the DB with blank spaces. The code I've done so far doesn't allow to continue if the customer leaves the input box blank, which is ok. The thing is, if the customer hits the space bar more than once the record will be saved to the database. Bottom line is... I'd like to let the user keep going ONLY when he's written something into the input box. Sorry for my grammar. Hope you guys can understand. Thank you so much!
Here's the script I'm using ATM:
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
$(function()
{
$('.btn-det').click(function(e)
{
e.preventDefault();
var name = $('#name').val();
var surname = $('#surname').val();
if (name === "" && surname === "")
{
alert("Please, enter your details!");
$("#userQuestion").hide();
}
else if(name != "" && surname === "")
{
alert("Please, enter your Surname");
$("#userQuestion").hide();
}
else if(name === "" && surname != "")
{
alert("Please, enter your Name");
$("#userQuestion").hide();
}
else {
$.post("saveDetails.php",
{
name: name,
surname: surname
});
$("#userDetails").hide(500);
$("#userQuestion").show(600);
}
});
});
});
</script>
I forgot to mention that, before saving to the DB, I have the following function which uses .trim() but it does not delete white space. It deletes only spaces at the begining and end of whatever the input is. Thanks again!
function test_input($data)
{
$data = trim($data);
$data = stripcslashes($data);
$data = htmlspecialchars($data);
return $data;
}

Answer 1

In javascript you can use the trim function on a string before sending the data :
var name = $('#name').val();
name = name.trim();
http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_trim_string.asp
This will remove the blank spaces before and after the string
In php you can do the same
$name = trim((string) $_POST['name']);

Answer 2

Just to be clear, TRIM by default only remove spaces (not all whitespaces). Here is the doc.
UPDATE FOO set FIELD2 = TRIM(FIELD2);
http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_trim_string.asp
If you need to use trim in select query, you can also use regular expressions
SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE field RLIKE ' * query-string *'
MySql Resouces
Another Example:
UPDATE student_surveys
SET favorite_activities =
TRIM(LEADING SPACE(1) FROM TRIM(TRAILING ',' FROM favorite_activities));

Answer 3

use following function
trim($data," \t")
this will remove whitespaces and tabs from the beginning and end of a string.
Have a look at
http://php.net/manual/en/function.trim.php
you have to give " " as second parameter which means that remove
whitespace (i.e " ") beginning and end of a string and "\t" means remove tab. Combining both (i.e " \t") means remove space and tab.

Answer 4

Ok guys. This is what I did. Instead of using just an "else", I used an "else if" with the condition that none of the input fields are blank, and trimmed those at the same time... Here's just the piece I edited:
Thanks a lot for your help!
if (name === "" && surname === "")
{
alert("Please, enter your details!");
$("#userQuestion").hide();
}
else if(name !== "" && surname === "")
{
alert("Please, enter your Surname");
$("#userQuestion").hide();
}
else if(name === "" && surname !== "")
{
alert("Please, enter your Name");
$("#userQuestion").hide();
}
//If there's any data saved into the variables, it deletes any leading and trailing white spaces//
else if($.trim(name) != "" && $.trim(surname) != "")
{
$.post("saveDetails.php",
{
name: name,
surname: surname
});
$("#userDetails").hide(500);
$("#userQuestion").show(600);
Again, thank you very much!