Cannot pass variable with apostrophe in “a href” link

Question

I select a list of names from mysqli database then display row details in display.php with if (isset($_GET['name'])); The link is

$str = strtoupper($str);
echo "<tr><td><a href='php/display.php?name=$str'>$str</a></td></tr>";

This executes correctly unless name contains '(apostrophe).

For instance $str (as input/click) shows as L'ECLIPSE but the <a> link only L' The result in display.php is 'No data found for your request'

I have found exact same queries on this site but none of the answers have resolved my problem. Perhaps I am not implementing correctly. I assume this is about escaping. But I know little about it.

Answer 1

<?php

$str = strtoupper($str);
echo "<tr><td><a href='php/display.php?name=".urlencode($str)."'>$str</a></td></tr>";

urlencode() the string first. So you don't get this kind of problems.

Answer 2

<?php

$str = strtoupper($str);
echo "<tr><td><a href='php/display.php?name=".$str."'>$str</a></td></tr>";

Answer 3

Try this code.

    <?php
    $str = strtoupper($str);
    echo "<tr><td><a href='php/display.php? 
    name=".htmlspecialchars($str)."'>$str</a></td></tr>";
    ?>

Your Single quote becomes '
I hope it will help

Answer 4

You have to use htmlspecialchars($str)

What it does is it switches all special characters to their respective html equivalent

for example:

' -> '
" -> "

and so on.