PHP is a great language, and is full of tons of functions that do just what your asking for quick, fast and in a hurry.  2 of the best functions I’ve come across are:

addslashes()

stripslashes()

These fuinctions are a LIFE SAVER if you are getting form data from your visitors and storing it in your database.  Their usage is so simple that I’ve yet to find something easiser todo that beats it.  Let’s say your process looks like this:

User Inputs Data –> Page Puts Data in Database — > Page returns user to edit their data

This is a pretty standard process for updating profile data for a social site, or for adding an entry to blog.  The usage of these functions really shows their strength here.

When collecting the data use the ADDSLASHES() function to add the escape character to your string preventing the user input from breaking your SQL (such as with apostrophe’s or double quotes!).  When you are getting the data back out of the database all you need to do is pass it to the STRIPSLASHES() function before using it and you’ll be good to go!  Below is a couple of example code snippets that show the implementation.

//Get User Data Page
$username = addslashes($_POST['user_name']);
$password = addslashes($_POST['pass_word']);

$add_user_sql = "INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES ('" . $username . "', '" . $password . "')";

//Show User Data Page
$show_user_sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username='hey_you'";
$show_user_result = mysql_query($show_user_sql);
$show_user_answer = mysql_fetch_assoc($show_user_result);

echo "Username: " . stripslashes($show_user_answer['username']);
echo '<br />';
echo "Password: " . stripslashes($show_user_answer['password']);

Hope this was helpful, feel free to comment I'm always looking for (worthwhile) improvements.

Everyone is familiar with the benefits of dynamic database driven content on a website.  Users can enter data and this data can involve other users and the chain goes on and on.  What I have yet to see done well is dynamic database driven styling.  I can envision visitors creating their own look and feel for a site (drastically, not just changing a few colors) and creating that ultimate personal visitor experience.

With the general rule being a 3 second impression per page I can understand why developers haven’t really looked into this very much.  Thats why I’m making it my first public project.  I am planning to develop a dynamic style sheet technology which will allows visitor to create a customized personal experience for any website which uses this technology.

I know that there are some sites which will not find this technology too useful but I believe sites with strong community bases could have a very high success rate for the technology.