The first one, I have this code:

PHP Code:

<?php $rnum = rand(0,9999);
echo $rnum;?>

Quite simple for now, and I just want to add 0s if it's less than four digits to make it four digits long, so 0000-9999. I can't seem to find anything on this.

The second one is, how do I use a textarea and PHP and I guess maybe mysql too to save newspaces (which then I can convert to <p> and </p>, such as the post boxes on forums) I've not found anything on that either, but would like to be able to use it.

1. strpad()
2. store \r\n in the database, convert them to <p> or whatever before placing into html

Thank you for number one, I knew I had seen a function to use before, how do I store \r\n in the database though?

If you receive your data from the client's browser textarea (because you cannot receive multiline input from input type="text") you can simply addslashes() to escape quote marks and store the whole text into your DB, all newlines will be preserved. Then after selecting your data from DB you simply do print(nl2br($text)). If you need to wrap your paragraphs into <p></p> you will have to do a little more work: first split() your text into array, add <p> to the beginning and </p> to the end of each array item and join() it back. Hope you already know how to iterate through arrays.

Originally Posted by Arenlor

Thank you for number one, I knew I had seen a function to use before, how do I store \r\n in the database though?

Are you asking how to add them to the string of their input, or actually how to add their input to the database?

mtishetsky explained how to turn characters input <p> already.