wacky tag mangling behavior

[sdavid14]

i'm trying to integrate OSCommerce into my existing PHP app, whereby sharing of session variables is required. right or wrong, i've chosen to accomplish this by including "application_top.php" and "application_bottom.php" in all my pages (even non-oscommerce ones) and using the tep_ functions to manage all variable registration.

my problem is: when i include application_top.php in my code, i'm experiencing a problem where certain HTML tags are getting mangled.

for example, what should look like this
---snip---
<a href="#" onclick='javascript:addList();'>add list</a>
| <a href="#" onclick="javascript:removeList();">remove list</a>
---snip---

comes out like this

---snip---
<a href="#" onclick='javascript:addList();'>add list</ | <a href="#" onclick="javascript:removeList();">remove list</a>
---snip---

...obviously distorting what the broser renders. when i simply remove this line:

require('includes/application_top.php');

the problem goes away. i've even removed all calls to any tep_xxxx functions from this page, and the problem persists.


questions:
1. any idea what could possibly cause this behavior?
2. if not, any other suggestions on how i can share session variables between oscommerce pages and non-oscommerce pages?

Thanks
Steve

[jonthewebb]

I asked this question on the oscommerce forums a while ago, I had table tags that weren't cl;osing and it was doing my head in, especially as my local server was fine but the remote was playing up.

Anyway I think it's a bug in PHP itself, see here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/bugs,1242

I have sometimes found that it is possible to stop it simplay by changing the formatting of your code, eg splitting <a href="#" onclick='javascript:addList();'>add list</a> onto two lines

<a href="#" onclick='javascript:addList();'>add
list</a>

that may or may not work. Upgrading to PHP 4.3 would fix it.

jon

[sdavid14]

that's the one alright.

splitting onto two lines didn't work, however, the suggested work-around of adding the following line to application_top.php appears to have done the trick:

ini_set ( 'session.use_trans_sid', 0);

thanks again, my friend. it is much appreciated.

steve

[jonthewebb]

you're welcome