title: What characters ARE allowed when querying a mysql database?
body: <p>I have a textarea in a form, when I enter special characters in it, I get an error in mysql. (when submitting the form to a php-file which does the work of inserting into mysql)</p>
  
  <p>I need to know exactly what characters that aren't allowed, or easier would be, exactly what characters thar ARE allowed, so that I could validate the textarea before submitting.</p>
  
  <p>Does anybody know?</p>
  
  <p>I have tried <strong>mysql_real_escape_string()</strong> but didn't help...</p>
  
  <p>NOTE: In the textarea, users are supposed to enter some special chars like these:</p>
  
  <pre><code> + , . ; : - _ space &amp; % ! ? = # * ½ @ / \ [ ] ' " &lt; &gt; £ $ €
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Probably got them all...</p>
  
  <p>how can I do this?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>
  
  <p><strong>UDPATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>My mysql_query :</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql_query("INSERT INTO cars_db (description) VALUES ('$ad_text')");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>Mysql error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'a"a!a?aa+a-a_a
  a/a\a[a]a}a{a&amp;a%a#a@a¨a^a*a*aa,a.a:a;a|a½a
  §a' at line 1
  </code></pre>