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I've had similar problems myself following tutorials from books. It's quite common. Which O'Reilly book are you learning from out of interest?

Ok, try this: .tab ul.login { clear:right; color:white; display:block; float:left; font-size:80%; height:42px; line-height:42px; margin-left:64%; text-align:center; width:auto; }

Any chance of you posting both the html and css source code? We can see what the problem is then. It looks like you've got something layered on top of the background with a background color of white.

I managed to fix those two particular errors by using the following code: //print a text box function input_text($element_name, $values) { if (isset($values[$element_name])) { print '<input type="text" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '"/>'; } else { print '<input type="text" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; print '"/>'; } } //print a textarea function input_textarea($element_name, $values) { if (isset($values[$element_name])) { print '<textarea name="' . $element_name .'">'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '</textarea>'; } else { print '<textarea name="' . $element_name . '">'; print '</textarea>'; } } I've found some more undefined indexes whilst testing the form further. I think I can fix those with what I've done above. I'd like to get your thoughts on the above code. Is that ok?

Ah! The output from what you recommended to try was an empty array key, I replaced all the instances of [ ] with [] and it fixed the problem. I just have those undefined index errors I'd like to fix. //print a text box function input_text($element_name, $values) { print '<input type="text" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '"/>'; } //print a textarea function input_textarea($element_name, $values) { print '<textarea name="' . $element_name .'">'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '</textarea>'; } On the first load of the form the text fields are prefilled with the following: <br /> <b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: name in <b>C:\wamp\www\phpplay\index.php</b> on line <b>13</b><br /> <br /> <b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: comments in <b>C:\wamp\www\phpplay\index.php</b> on line <b>25</b><br /> I've tried to write my own code to spit out blank if $values[$element_name] is not set but it fails to work. Can you help me with this last hurdle? Thanks!

I changed from POST to GET to see what was being submitted and this is the problem: &main_dish[++]=stomach&main_dish[++]=taro When I changed the pluses to 0 and 1 respectively the form worked. I can't work out what in the code is causing that though. Once that's fixed and those undefined index errors in the value fields this will work fine

It keeps requesting you to select two choices even though you have. Also, on the initial load the value boxes from these two functions print out undefined index. I want to check $values[$element_name] is defined, if it isn't print out blank, " " else print $values[$element_name]. function input_text($element_name, $values) { print '<input type="text" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '"/>'; } //print a textarea function input_textarea($element_name, $values) { print '<textarea name="' . $element_name .'">'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '</textarea>'; } I tried to write something like this: function input_text($element_name, $values) { print '<input type="text" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; if (isset($values[$element_name])); { print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '"/>'; } else { print ("%20" . '"/>'); } } Which didn't work

Hey guys, I've got this book, Learning PHP 5 by David Sklar. I've also got access to it via Safari Books Online(trial version). I'm currently stuck(again) on Chapter 6, Making Web Forms. I was looking forward to this chapter as I've got a form validation test for a PHP course I'm registered on coming up. Anyhow, I've encountered some problems with the author's code and I would like some of the resident experts on here to critique it for me to confirm whether or not I should incinerate this book for the good of man kind. First of all. On my web server that's online, all looks well and it appears fine. Except the validation fails on one section of the form making the entire form useless. Offline running on a WAMP installation I receive this: Here is the source code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"? "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <title></title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> </head> <body> <?php //print a text box function input_text($element_name, $values) { print '<input type="text" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '"/>'; } //print a submit button function input_submit($element_name, $label) { print '<input type="submit" name="' . $element_name .'" value="'; print htmlentities($label) .'"/>'; } //print a textarea function input_textarea($element_name, $values) { print '<textarea name="' . $element_name .'">'; print htmlentities($values[$element_name]) . '</textarea>'; } //print a radio button or checkbox function input_radiocheck($type, $element_name, $values, $element_value) { print '<input type="' . $type . '" name="' . $element_name .'" value="' . $element_value . '" '; if ($element_value == $values[$element_name]) { print ' checked="checked"'; } print '/>'; } //print a <select> menu function input_select($element_name, $selected, $options, $multiple = false) { // print out the <select> tag print '<select name="' . $element_name; // if multiple choices are permitted, add the multiple attribute // and add a [ ] to the end of the tag name if ($multiple) { print '[ ]" multiple="multiple'; } print '">'; // set up the list of things to be selected $selected_options = array( ); if ($multiple) { foreach ($selected[$element_name] as $val) { $selected_options[$val] = true; } } else { $selected_options[ $selected[$element_name] ] = true; } // print out the <option> tags foreach ($options as $option => $label) { print '<option value="' . htmlentities($option) . '"'; if (isset($selected_options[$option])) { print ' selected="selected"'; } print '>' . htmlentities($label) . '</option>'; } print '</select>'; } ?> <?php // don't forget to include the code for the form // helper functions defined in Example 6-29 // // setup the arrays of choices in the select menus // these are needed in display_form( ), validate_form( ), // and process_form( ), so they are declared in the global scope $sweets = array('puff' => 'Sesame Seed Puff', 'square' => 'Coconut Milk Gelatin Square', 'cake' => 'Brown Sugar Cake', 'ricemeat' => 'Sweet Rice and Meat'); $main_dishes = array('cuke' => 'Braised Sea Cucumber', 'stomach' => "Sauteed Pig's Stomach", 'tripe' => 'Sauteed Tripe with Wine Sauce', 'taro' => 'Stewed Pork with Taro', 'giblets' => 'Baked Giblets with Salt', 'abalone' => 'Abalone with Marrow and Duck Feet'); // The main page logic: // - If the form is submitted, validate and then process or redisplay // - If it's not submitted, display if ($_POST['_submit_check']) { // If validate_form( ) returns errors, pass them to show_form( ) if ($form_errors = validate_form( )) { show_form($form_errors); } else { // The submitted data is valid, so process it process_form( ); } } else { // The form wasn't submitted, so display show_form( ); } function show_form($errors = '') { // If the form is submitted, get defaults from submitted parameters if ($_POST['_submit_check']) { $defaults = $_POST; } else { // Otherwise, set our own defaults: medium size and yes to delivery $defaults = array('delivery' => 'yes', 'size' => 'medium'); } // If errors were passed in, put them in $error_text (with HTML markup) if ($errors) { $error_text = '<tr><td>You need to correct the following errors:'; $error_text .= '</td><td><ul><li>'; $error_text .= implode('</li><li>',$errors); $error_text .= '</li></ul></td></tr>'; } else { // No errors? Then $error_text is blank $error_text = ''; } // Jump out of PHP mode to make displaying all the HTML tags easier ?> <form method="POST" action="<?php print $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>"> <table> <?php print $error_text ?> <tr><td>Your Name:</td> <td><?php input_text('name', $defaults) ?></td></tr> <tr><td>Size:</td> <td><?php input_radiocheck('radio','size', $defaults, 'small'); ?> Small <br/> <?php input_radiocheck('radio','size', $defaults, 'medium'); ?> Medium <br/> <?php input_radiocheck('radio','size', $defaults, 'large'); ?> Large </td></tr> <tr><td>Pick one sweet item:</td> <td><?php input_select('sweet', $defaults, $GLOBALS['sweets']); ?> </td></tr> <tr><td>Pick two main dishes:</td> <td> <?php input_select('main_dish', $defaults, $GLOBALS['main_dishes'], true) ?> </td></tr> <tr><td>Do you want your order delivered?</td> <td><?php input_radiocheck('checkbox','delivery', $defaults, 'yes'); ?> Yes </td></tr> <tr><td>Enter any special instructions.<br/> If you want your order delivered, put your address here:</td> <td><?php input_textarea('comments', $defaults); ?></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><?php input_submit('save','Order'); ?> </td></tr> </table> <input type="hidden" name="_submit_check" value="1"/> </form> <?php } // The end of show_form( ) function validate_form( ) { $errors = array( ); // name is required if (! strlen(trim($_POST['name']))) { $errors[ ] = 'Please enter your name.'; } // size is required if (($_POST['size'] != 'small') && ($_POST['size'] != 'medium') && ($_POST['size'] != 'large')) { $errors[ ] = 'Please select a size.'; } // sweet is required if (! array_key_exists($_POST['sweet'], $GLOBALS['sweets'])) { $errors[ ] = 'Please select a valid sweet item.'; } // exactly two main dishes required if (count($_POST['main_dish']) != 2) { $errors[ ] = 'Please select exactly two main dishes.'; } else { // We know there are two main dishes selected, so make sure they are // both valid if (! (array_key_exists($_POST['main_dish'][0], $GLOBALS['main_dishes']) && array_key_exists($_POST['main_dish'][1], $GLOBALS['main_dishes']))) { $errors[ ] = 'Please select exactly two valid main dishes.'; } } // if delivery is checked, then comments must contain something if (($_POST['delivery'] == 'yes') && (! strlen(trim($_POST['comments'])))) { $errors[ ] = 'Please enter your address for delivery.'; } return $errors; } function process_form( ) { // look up the full names of the sweet and the main dishes in // the $GLOBALS['sweets'] and $GLOBALS['main_dishes'] arrays $sweet = $GLOBALS['sweets'][ $_POST['sweet'] ]; $main_dish_1 = $GLOBALS['main_dishes'][ $_POST['main_dish'][0] ]; $main_dish_2 = $GLOBALS['main_dishes'][ $_POST['main_dish'][1] ]; if ($_POST['delivery'] == 'yes') { $delivery = 'do'; } else { $delivery = 'do not'; } // build up the text of the order message $message=<<<_ORDER_ Thank you for your order, $_POST[name]. You requested the $_POST[size] size of $sweet, $main_dish_1, and $main_dish_2. You $delivery want delivery. _ORDER_; if (strlen(trim($_POST['comments']))) { $message .= 'Your comments: '.$_POST['comments']; } // send the message to the chef mail('chef@restaurant.example.com', 'New Order', $message); // print the message, but encode any HTML entities // and turn newlines into <br/> tags print nl2br(htmlentities($message)); } ?> </body> </html> It's not only this book that I've encountered errors with the author's code. I've had the same problem with PHP Cookbook also by O'Reilly & 2 Apress books. Perhaps it's my sheer stupidity and I'm doing something wrong? Or is error logging overly cautious? Even if it is, in some instances the author's code just completely fails anyhow. I find it an odd coincidence that I've only had issues with PHP books. As I've got books on HTML, CSS and Javascript and I've never encountered as many errors as I've had with PHP books. Or perhaps I've just been unfortunate and have picked some really bad books. I got these books based on Amazon reviews and the publishers reputation. The reason I bought a book was to avoid pestering people on forums like these, haha. David's book was a really good introduction to PHP but with having no experience with things such as form validation I really wanted to see how an expert tackled such tasks so that I could try and understand how and why it was done that way and emulate it myself. That goes down the crapper when the code examples fail to work :-\

Thank you!

Hey guys, I'm currently making my way through a book called 'Learning PHP 5'(2004) and the author's own answer to one of the exercises is outputting Undefined index. I can't see anything on the errata website for that book :-\ It does output data below the error but what's causing the undefined error? Here's the author's code: <?php // Separate the city and state name in the array so we can total by state $population = array('New York' => array('state' => 'NY', 'pop' => 8008278), 'Los Angeles' => array('state' => 'CA', 'pop' => 3694820), 'Chicago' => array('state' => 'IL', 'pop' => 2896016), 'Houston' => array('state' => 'TX', 'pop' => 1953631), 'Philadelphia' => array('state' => 'PA', 'pop' => 1517550), 'Phoenix' => array('state' => 'AZ', 'pop' => 1321045), 'San Diego' => array('state' => 'CA', 'pop' => 1223400), 'Dallas' => array('state' => 'TX', 'pop' => 1188580), 'San Antonio' => array('state' => 'TX', 'pop' => 1144646), 'Detroit' => array('state' => 'MI', 'pop' => 951270)); // Use the $state_totals array to keep track of per-state totals $state_totals = array(); $total_population = 0; print "<table><tr><th>City</th><th>Population</th></tr>\n"; foreach ($population as $city => $info) { // $info is an array with two elements: pop (city population) // and state (state name) $total_population += $info['pop']; // increment the $info['state'] element in $state_totals by $info['pop'] // to keep track of the total population of state $info['state'] $state_totals[$info['state']] += $info['pop']; print "<tr><td>$city, {$info['state']}</td><td>{$info['pop']}</td></tr>\n"; } // Iterate through the $state_totals array to print the per-state totals foreach ($state_totals as $state => $pop) { print "<tr><td>$state</td><td>$pop</td>\n"; } print "<tr><td>Total</td><td>$total_population</td></tr>\n"; print "</table>\n"; ?> Here's what I get when I run the code: Notice: Undefined index: NY in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 Notice: Undefined index: CA in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 Notice: Undefined index: IL in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 Notice: Undefined index: TX in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 Notice: Undefined index: PA in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 Notice: Undefined index: AZ in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 Notice: Undefined index: MI in C:\wamp\www\phpplay\answer-4-3.php on line 25 City Population New York, NY 8008278 Los Angeles, CA 3694820 Chicago, IL 2896016 Houston, TX 1953631 Philadelphia, PA 1517550 Phoenix, AZ 1321045 San Diego, CA 1223400 Dallas, TX 1188580 San Antonio, TX 1144646 Detroit, MI 951270 NY 8008278 CA 4918220 IL 2896016 TX 4286857 PA 1517550 AZ 1321045 MI 951270 Total 23899236