Sticky forms: There has got to be a more efficient way

[kyalee]

This question isn't so much help me make this work as help me do this better.

 

I updated my contact form to be sticky so that people won't have to reenter their information if they skip a required field or format their email address incorrectly. As of right now, it works fine. But the code makes me itch. It's ugly and it's completely inefficient.

 

//RETREIVING FORMATTING HEADER
include('header.inc');

//RETREIVING POST VARIABLES
$name = $_POST['name'];
$company = $_POST['company'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$comments = $_POST['comments'];

//STRIP SLASHES 
$name = stripslashes($name);
$company = stripslashes($company);
$comments = stripslashes($comments);

//"STICKY FORM"; WILL BE DISPLAYED IF THE USER DOES NOT FILL OUT THE FORM CORRECTLY
$form = "<form method=\"post\" action=\"contactform.php\">
<fieldset>
<legend>* Indicates a required field.</legend>
<p><label for=\"name\">*Name:</label> <input type=\"text\" name=\"name\" id=\"name\" value=\"$name\" /></p>
<p><label for=\"company\">Company:</label> <input type=\"text\" name=\"company\" id=\"company\" value=\"$company\" /></p>	
<p><label for=\"email\">*Email:</label> <input type=\"text\" name=\"email\" id=\"email\" value=\"$email\" /></p>
<p><label for=\"phone\">Phone #:</label> <input type=\"text\" name=\"phone\" id=\"phone\" value=\"$phone\" /></p>
<p><label for=\"comments\">*Comments:</label> <textarea name=\"comments\" rows=\"10\" cols=\"40\" wrap>$comments</textarea></p>
<p class=\"submit\">
<input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\" /> 
<input type=\"reset\" name=\"reset\" id=\"reset\" value=\"Clear\" />
</p>
</fieldset>
</form>";

// WHERE THE E-MAIL IS GOING
$recipient = '[email protected]';

//EMAIL SUBJECT
$subject = 'Contact Form Submitted';

//WHAT THE EMAIL SAYS
$msg = "New Contact Form Submitted with the following information:
Name: $name

Company: $company

Email: $email

Phone #: $phone

Comments: $comments";

//REQUIRED FIELD ERROR MESSAGE 
$error_required = "<p>You did not fill in all required fields. Please check the information that you entered below and submit your form again.</p>";

//EMAIL FORMAT ERROR MESSAGE
$error_email = "<p>The email address you entered is invalid. Please check the information that you entered below and submit your form again.</p>";

//EMAIL SENT SUCESSFULLY MESSAGE
$sucess_msg = "<p>Thank you for your interest. We will contact you with more information as soon as possible.</p>";
           
//REGULAR EXPRESSION FOR CHECKING CORRECT FORMAT OF EMAIL 
$emailregexp = "[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,3})";

//CHECKING THAT INFORMATION HAS BEEN ENTERED IN ALL REQUIRED FIELDS 
if ((!$name) || (!$email) || (!$comments))	{
echo $error_required;
echo $form;
}

//CHECKING THAT EMAIL ADDRESS IS CORRECTLY FORMATTED 
elseif (!eregi($emailregexp, $email))	{
	echo $error_email;
	echo $form;
	} 

else {

//MAILING FORM 
mail ($recipient, $subject, $msg, 'From: [email protected]');
echo $sucess_msg;
}

 

See all those back slashes in the $form variable. Ugly and inefficient. How can I do this better?

[DeanWhitehouse]

Please use php tags.

 

Code doesn't need to look pretty and escaping characters is fine.

 

But if you don't want to then you can do

 

$var = <<something

stuff

something>>

 

that would allow you to insert html without the need of escaping.

 

Or similar, one of the other members may know

 

 

[kyalee]

Please use php tags.

 

You mean "<?php" and "?>"?

 

I use them, I just left them out when I pasted the code to save space. I figured you guys didn't care about all of the comment notes in the beginning of the script.

[DeanWhitehouse]

I meant in the code you posted as it has syntax highlighting.

[kyalee]

Oh, I see. Will use them in the future.

[Maq]

I would recommend using

tags with "<?php ?>" encapsulating the code rather than just

tags because they produce a large amount of line breaks if you CnP it to your IDE.

 

But if you don't want to then you can do

 

$var =

stuff

something>>

 

that would allow you to insert html without the need of escaping.

 

@kyalee,

  This is called HEREDOC, incase you're wanting to look it up.