Fix issue with backslashes being removed from entry values

[AbdiTolesa]

Fix https://github.com/Strategy11/formidable-pro/issues/1246

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The changes modify the process_entry method in the FrmEntriesController class. Previously, the method used wp_unslash($_POST) for input validation and passed raw $_POST when creating an entry. Now, it directly uses $_POST for validation and applies wp_slash($_POST) before calling the entry creation method. This update alters the data sanitization flow used during the validation and storage phases.

Changes

File(s)	Change Summary
classes/controllers/FrmEntriesController.php	Updated the process_entry method: replaced wp_unslash($_POST) with direct $_POST for validation and applied wp_slash($_POST) before entry creation.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant Controller as FrmEntriesController
    participant Entry as FrmEntry

    User->>+Controller: Submit POST data
    Controller->>Controller: Validate input using raw $_POST
    Controller->>Controller: Prepare data using wp_slash($_POST)
    Controller->>Entry: Create entry with slashed data
    Entry-->>Controller: Return creation result
    Controller-->>User: Return response

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Possibly related PRs

• Fix pro issue 5064 / Fix format unslashing issue in field cache #1999: Adjustments in the handling of slashes in the FrmField class; relates to the current changes in slashing and unslashing data in the FrmEntriesController class.

Suggested labels

action: needs qa, run analysis, run tests

Suggested reviewers

• garretlaxton

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Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 31d53f0 and 0b157f3.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• classes/controllers/FrmEntriesController.php (2 hunks)

🔇 Additional comments (3)

classes/controllers/FrmEntriesController.php (3)

620-620: Modified data sanitization approach during validation.

The change removes the wp_unslash() function when validating form data, which prevents backslashes entered by users from being stripped during the validation process.

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638-638: Applied proper data escaping before entry creation.

Adding wp_slash() to the $_POST data before passing it to FrmEntry::create() ensures that user-entered backslashes are properly preserved in the database. This is the correct approach as WordPress automatically adds slashes to data before storing it in the database, and the previous implementation was likely causing backslashes to be inadvertently removed.

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620-638: Verify this change fixes the backslash issue across all use cases.

The changes correctly address the issue of backslashes being removed from entry values by modifying the data handling flow. However, it's important to verify this solution works in all scenarios.

You can test this fix with the following steps:

1. Create a form with a text field
2. Submit the form with values containing backslashes (e.g., C:\path\to\file or This is a \"quoted\" text)
3. Verify that the backslashes are preserved in the saved entry

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[AbdiTolesa]

@Crabcyborg This PR only covers entry create process, we can apply similar fix to Pro if it is accepted.

What I found to be causing the issue of backslashes getting removed from the entry values is that we are calling wp_unslash twice on each entry value when creating an entry and try to unslash the value in FrmEntry::prepare_entry.

Here is what I exactly mean,

When creating an entry $_POST is slashed somewhere and FrmEntriesController::process_entry is called, which unslashes the global $_POST when passing it to FrmEntryValidate::validate. Later on FrmEntriesHelper::get_posted_meta is called and that unslashes the entry meta values in the global $_POST variable for the second time. Now if you have \I'm cool in your value, only I'm cool is stored in database. That is the issue.

The values sent to the database should actually be slashed once to be retrieved properly later as in this PR but I don't have that much of confidence that it is an ideal solution. I have tried to think to come up with alternative solutions but I couldn't.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.