Cannot pass variables between html and php

lparsons · July 18, 2008

Hello

I am working with an Ubuntu system that I just set up with Apache2, MySQL, and PHP5. I would like to set up a form that allows me to enter data into a small MySQL database. I have been stuck with problems getting php pages to take variables from html forms. I've reduced my form to just two fields to try to simplify testing:

The form is "example.html":

<html>
<body>
<form action=mypage.php action=post>
  <input type=text name=email>
  <input type=text name=first_name>
  <input type=submit name=submit value=yes>
</form>
</body>
</html>

And then the mypage.php is as follows:

<?php
echo "submit was";
$stuff = $_POST['submit'];
//echo _$POST[submit];
echo "$stuff";
echo " or maybe";
echo $submit;
echo "<br>";
echo "email was";
$email = $_POST['email'];
//echo "_$POST[email]";
echo "$email";
echo "<br>";

if (isset($submit) && $submit="yes"){
    echo "thank you for submitting";
  }else{
    ?>
<form action=mypage.php action=post>
    <input type=text name=email>
    <input type=text name=first_name>
    <input type=submit name=submit value=yes>
</form>
<?php
}
?>

None of those attempts in mypage.php give any result from the variables for "submit" or "email". I turned on "register_globals" in /var/www/.htaccess to try to help the situation, and that also made no difference.

jesushax · July 18, 2008

Use the form field names to get the values

$stuff1 = $_POST['email'];

$stuff2 = $_POST[first_name'];

LooieENG · July 18, 2008

You should put "" in the HTML

<form action="mypage.php" action="post">
  <input type="text" name="email">
  <input type="text" name="first_name">
  <input type="submit" name="submit" value="yes">
</form>

KevinM1 · July 18, 2008

This may or may not be the issue, but put your form attributes (i.e. action) within quotes (action="mypage.php").

Also, register_globals doesn't do what you think it does, and can be dangerous to have on from a security standpoint. It's best to leave it off.

JasonLewis · July 18, 2008

To confirm form data being sent, put this at the top of your PHP page:

print_r($_POST);

JonnyThunder · July 18, 2008

Working example....

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Test</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php
    if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
        print "Email: {$_POST['email']}<br />\n";
        print "First name: {$_POST['first_name']}<br />\n";
    } else {
?>

<form action="" method="post" name="testform">
<input name="email" type="text" />
<input name="first_name" type="text" />
<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Yes" />
</form>

<?php
    }
?>

</body>
</html>

Will work if your PHP is working correctly. :-) Tested on Vertrigo (PHP 5)

lparsons · July 18, 2008

Will work if your PHP is working correctly. :-) Tested on Vertrigo (PHP 5)

That is the only solution I have seen so far that works. Now I just need to figure out why. Even more so, I'd love to know why nothing else works. I guess it wouldn't kill me to skip html-only forms altogether and just do everything in php.

To confirm form data being sent' date=' put this at the top of your PHP page:[/quote']
The result was "Array()". So I guess it confirmed what I suspected - nothing was passed from my html form to my php script.

I went back and turned globals back off, as well.

You should put "" in the HTML

I went through and added quotes for all of those fields in the html. It unfortunately made no difference.

Use the form field names to get the values

I think I already tried that, in the code I submitted. Please correct me if I'm missing something.

LooieENG · July 18, 2008

if (isset($submit) && $submit="yes"){

<?php
echo "submit was";
$stuff = $_POST['submit'];
//echo _$POST[submit];
echo "$stuff";
echo " or maybe";
echo $submit;

$submit was never defined

Also, it should be

if ($submit == 'yes')

2 equal signs

unkwntech · July 18, 2008

As JonnyThunder hinted at I think there is probably something wrong with the php installation.

JonnyThunder · July 18, 2008

Try doing it with the two files again and see...

test.html

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Test</title>
</head>
<body>

<form action="test.php" method="post" name="testform">
<input name="email" type="text" />
<input name="first_name" type="text" />
<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Yes" />
</form>

</body>
</html>

And test.php

<?php
    if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
        print "Email: {$_POST['email']}<br />\n";
        print "First name: {$_POST['first_name']}<br />\n";
    } else {
        require('test.html');
    }
?>

If that works, then you'll know it was badly formatted HTML and not a PHP issue.

kenrbnsn · July 18, 2008

The problem is in this line:

<form action="mypage.php" action="post">

it should be

<form action="mypage.php" method="post">

Not having a "method" attribute in the form tag, made the method "get".

Ken

JonnyThunder · July 18, 2008

Well spotted chief. I completely missed that one!

kenrbnsn · July 18, 2008

I missed it to when I first looked at the code. I finally saw it when I copied the OP's code to my machine and tried it.

Ken

lparsons · July 18, 2008

If that works' date=' then you'll know it was badly formatted HTML and not a PHP issue.[/quote']
Indeed, it appears my HTML is garbage. I'll continue working on straightening that out.

What is the purpose of the "/" at the end of the lines in your code? For example:
<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Yes" />
Which seems to have made a difference, but I'm not sure why!

Not having a "method" attribute in the form tag' date=' made the method "get".[/quote']
Thanks for spotting that. My typo probably would have made my life difficult for some time, I suspect...

LooieENG · July 18, 2008

Valid XHTML requires that all tags are closed.

i.e.

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Cannot pass variables between html and php

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