Coding not carrying through?

[John]

I've noticed that the descriptions from Amazon appear here with some of the underlying raw coding ("

" and the string representing an apostrophe, for example) instead of the intended HTML end result (for lack of a better term). I've gone through and stripped it out in descriptions when I've run across it - is it something that's being worked on, or should we report coding as we encounter it? If so, how? Thanks!

[rivka, Former Moderator]

A lot of the HTML does work now; that tag is one of the few that still doesn't.

I've just been stripping them out when I see them, but an Official Pronouncement would be good. ;)

[Dora]

I've also noticed that the tags sometimes show in the book description until you hit the "more" link; after that, the formatting shows up instead. Looks like it's switching from a plain text view to an HTML view.

[Chriss]

Hey gardentraveler, the reason the code is showing in the description, but not the "more" view of the description is that the HTML codes are being split apart by the breakpoint in the description. Since the database cuts off the description after a certain number of characters the opening HTML tag code, say < b >, is being separated from it's closing tag < / b >.

Don't know how familiar you are with HTML, but all codes come in pairs, an opening tag to show where the effect of the code should begin and a closing tag to show where the effect of the code should stop (except for a few, such as for image placement, page breaks, and horizontal lines).

When the auto-breakpoint for the description insert separates the opening tag from the closing, it confuses the browser, which in this case decides that < b > is supposed to be part of the text, since it has no < / b > tag to tell it what the < b > is for. When you click "more" and see the full version of the description, the two halves of the code are reunited and the browser suddenly knows what to do with it.

The only thing that can be done to prevent it is to either place HTML tags in the beginning so that BOTH opening and closing portions will be before the auto-breakpoint OR so that both portions are after the auto-breakpoint. Otherwise the two halves of the code get orphaned from each other when the system creates the brief description insert and the browser gets confused.

It's actually not an unusual problem for database-driven sites, this confusion of the browser by features breaking HTML codes apart from their two halves.