Why is textarea filled with mysterious white spaces?

Question

I have a simple text area in a form like this:

    <?php if(         
<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
     style="display:block"
     data-ad-client="ca-pub-5408099190056760"
     data-ad-slot="7305827575"
     data-ad-format="auto"
     data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>
<script>
     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>        </div>
      </div>
      
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                <span>2020-11-28 02:34</span>
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              <p>          
<p>Make sure first that your $siteLink_val isn't returning white space as a value. The <textarea> element by default has an empty value so if the variable you're echo'ing for some reason has spaces, there's your problem right off the bat. </p>

<p>To make the code the absolute cleanest, I would suggest you could do something like this, allowing for some more flexibility later. I've made a function that returns either a NULL if the variable isn't present (what you seem to be aiming for in the original post) and the absolute value otherwise. Once you've made sure of your variable's contents, try this:</p>

<pre><code>function build_siteLink_val() {
     if ( $siteLink_val ) {
          return $siteLink_val;
     }

     else {
          return "";
     }
}

$output_siteLink_val = build_siteLink_val();
</code></pre>

<p>And the following code in your textarea would now read:</p>

<pre><code><textarea style="width:350px; height:80px;" cols="42" rows="5" name="sitelink"><?=$output_siteLink_val?>

This is assuming your PHP install is configured for short-hand variable calls, as seen in the shortened "" tags. If you cannot output this way, remember to preface your PHP code with "".

Avoid line breaks between 's because it can create the potential of erroneous characters. </p> <p>Also, check your CSS to make sure there isn't a padding rule pushing text inward.</p> <p>Also, you specify a cols and rows value on the textarea, and then style a width and height. These rules are counter-productive, and will result in inconsistent visuals. Stick with either defining the size through style (I recommend giving the element a class) or the rows/cols.</p> </p> <div class="appendcontent"> </div> </div> <div class="jieda-reply"> <span class="jieda-zan button_agree" type="zan" data-id='474058'> <i class="iconfont icon-zan"></i> <em>0</em> </span> <span type="reply" class="showpinglun" data-id="474058"> <i class="iconfont icon-svgmoban53"></i> 讨论(0) </span> <div class="jieda-admin"> </div> <div class="noreplaytext bb"> <center><div> <a href="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/q-117994.html"> 查看其它21个回答 </a> </div></center> </div> </div> <div class="comments-mod " style="display: none; float:none;padding-top:10px;" id="comment_474058"> <div class="areabox clearfix"> <form class="layui-form" action=""> <div class="layui-form-item"> <label class="layui-form-label" style="padding-left:0px;width:60px;">发布评论:</label> <div class="layui-input-block" style="margin-left:90px;"> <input type="text" placeholder="不少于5个字" AUTOCOMPLETE="off" class="comment-input layui-input" name="content" /> <input type='hidden' value='0' name='replyauthor' /> </div> <div class="mar-t10"><span class="fr layui-btn layui-btn-sm addhuidapinglun" data-id="474058">提交评论 </span></div> </div> </form> </div> <hr> <ul class="my-comments-list nav"> <li class="loading"> <img src='https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/static/css/default/loading.gif' align='absmiddle' />  加载中... </li> </ul> </div> </li> </ul> <div class="layui-form layui-form-pane"> <form id="huidaform" name="answerForm" method="post"> <div class="layui-form-item layui-form-text"> <a name="comment"></a> <div class="layui-input-block"> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/static/js/neweditor/ueditor.config.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/static/js/neweditor/ueditor.all.js"></script> <script type="text/plain" id="editor" name="content" style="width:100%;height:200px;"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var isueditor=1; var editor = UE.getEditor('editor',{ //这里可以选择自己需要的工具按钮名称,此处仅选择如下五个 toolbars:[['source','fullscreen', '|', 'undo', 'redo', '|', 'bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'fontborder', 'strikethrough', 'removeformat', 'formatmatch', 'autotypeset', 'blockquote', 'pasteplain', '|', 'forecolor', 'backcolor', 'insertorderedlist', 'insertunorderedlist', 'selectall', 'cleardoc', '|', 'rowspacingtop', 'rowspacingbottom', 'lineheight', '|', 'customstyle', 'paragraph', 'fontfamily', 'fontsize', '|', 'indent', '|', 'justifyleft', 'justifycenter', 'justifyright', 'justifyjustify', '|', 'link', 'unlink', 'anchor', '|', 'simpleupload', 'insertimage', 'scrawl', 'insertvideo', 'attachment', 'map', 'insertcode', '|', 'horizontal', '|', 'preview', 'searchreplace', 'drafts']], initialContent:'', //关闭字数统计 wordCount:false, zIndex:2, //关闭elementPath elementPathEnabled:false, //默认的编辑区域高度 initialFrameHeight:250 //更多其他参数，请参考ueditor.config.js中的配置项 //更多其他参数，请参考ueditor.config.js中的配置项 }); editor.ready(function() { editor.setDisabled(); }); $("#editor").find("*").css("max-width","362px"); </script> </div> </div> <div class="layui-form-item"> <label for="L_vercode" class="layui-form-label">验证码</label> <div class="layui-input-inline"> <input type="text" id="code" name="code" value="" required lay-verify="required" placeholder="图片验证码" autocomplete="off" class="layui-input"> </div> <div class="layui-form-mid"> <span style="color: #c00;"><img class="hand" src="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/user/code.html" onclick="javascript:updatecode();" id="verifycode"><a class="changecode" href="javascript:updatecode();"> 看不清?</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="layui-form-item"> <input type="hidden" value="117994" id="ans_qid" name="qid"> <input type="hidden" id="tokenkey" name="tokenkey" value=''/> <input type="hidden" value="Why is textarea filled with mysterious white spaces?" id="ans_title" name="title"> <div class="layui-btn layui-btn-disabled" id="ajaxsubmitasnwer" >提交回复</div> </div> </form> </div> </div> <input type="hidden" value="117994" id="adopt_qid" name="qid" /> <input type="hidden" id="adopt_answer" value="0" name="aid" /> </div> <div class="layui-col-md4"> <!-- 热门讨论问题 --> <dl class="fly-panel fly-list-one"> <dt class="fly-panel-title">热议问题</dt> <!-- 本周热门讨论问题显示10条-->