Quick fix - form entering blank records - same old problem

[phatmambo]

I know this problem comes up a lot but it can be for various reasons so after reading up I can't decide what might be wrong. I'm still learning!

I have a simple php registration form (first name, second name, email address) and every time a user submits an entry a second blank record is created in the MYSQL database after it.

 

Any help would be great. (php code in red)

 

 

[color=red]<?
$firstname=$_POST['firstname'];
$surname=$_POST['surname'];
$email=$_POST['email'];

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");

$query = "INSERT INTO register VALUES ('','$firstname','$surname','$email')";
mysql_query($query);

mysql_close();
?>[/color]

 

 

Here is the section on the html HTML page that submits the form

 

 <form action="register.php" method="post" class="BagTitle">
        <table width="700" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2">
	  <tr>
	    <td width="100">First Name: </td>
	    <td width="594"><input name="firstname" type="text" size="50" /></td>
      </tr>
	  <tr>
	    <td>Last Name: </td>
	    <td><input name="surname" type="text" size="50" /></td>
      </tr>
	  <tr>
	    <td>E-mail:</td>
	    <td><input name="email" type="text" size="50" /></td>
      </tr>
	  <tr>
	    <td colspan="2"> </td>
      </tr>
	  <tr>
	    <td colspan="2"><input type="Submit" value="Send" />
        <input name="Reset" type="reset" value="Reset Form" /></td>
      </tr>
    </table>
      </form></p>

 

Also I have no idea about securing this information. Are there any basic steps I can take?

 

 

 

[revraz]

Only run the PHP code if Submit is set.

[phatmambo]

Hi thanks

 

I guess I need to use something like:

 

if (isset($_POST['submit']))

 

I'm a little unclear how or where though?

[phatmambo]

I've just discovered that it doesn't add the extra blank record in if the user is using internet explorer. I was testing it with Firefox (it definitely does add in a blank record after the new one.

 

Does this help? I'm still a bit lost on how to fix this????

[PFMaBiSmAd]

Firefox will request a page twice due to using debugging add-ons and at least in the past it would request a page twice if the default character encoding you have set in the browser does not match the character encoding on the page.

[phatmambo]

I really have no idea how to fix this. I have seen other cases when searching around where just a couple of unnecessary <td> tags in the html have caused the browser to refresh and send the data twice - once properly and once with just blank fields.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Even if there isn't a way of stopping firefox refreshing, can I just say in the php code - don't send to the database if fields are empty or if button hasn't actually been clicked. This would then surely fix the problem???

[PFMaBiSmAd]

Your code should be validating the form data and only performing the query when all the expected data have values. Doing this would filter out empty submissions.