Function not preserving the old values
<p>This is all the source code, it is a simple form with 2 text fields:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://pastebin.com/SVUQtDWS" rel="nofollow">index.tmpl.php</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pastebin.com/PQ4Qb6bk" rel="nofollow">index.php and functions.php</a></li>
</ul>

<p>The problem I have is in the HTML where it calls the old function:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;input type="text" name="name" value="&lt;?php old('name'); ?&gt;"&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>The old function code:</p>

<pre><code>function old($key)  if( !empty($_REQUEST['$key']))                
    {return htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST['$key']); }       
    return '';   
    }
</code></pre>

<p>For some reason, it doesn't preserve the old values. I cleared the cache and restarted Apache to see if that was the problem but nothing. I ran out of ideas, any ideas why the old function is being ignored?</p>

<hr>

<p>My testing environment: Windows 7, xampp  php5.3, but also uploaded to my test server and same results.</p>
