passing values in hidden fields on a form

[sambib]

Hi,

I've got a long php/html form which I've broken up into pages for usability and I want to pass the collected vlaues from page to page in hidden fields, however it's not working.

the data from the first page gets passed to the second like so:

[color=blue][font=Verdana]<?php
if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {

echo "<p>you entered: $dateOfBirth</p>";
echo "<p>you entered: " . ($_POST['firstName']) . "</p>";[/font][/color]

this is just for testing and at this stage it works (ie. the values appear on the page as i expect)

[b]The values don't however get passed from here on....?[/b]:

[color=blue]<form id="downloadForm" name="downloadForm" action="surveyform3.php" method="post">


<input type="hidden" name="firstName" value="<?php ($_POST['firstName']); ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="dateOfBirth" value="<?php $dateOfBirth; ?>" />

<label for="submit" class="required"><span class="labelText">Continue to Page 3 of the Form:</span>
<input id="submit" type="submit" name="submit" value="Next Page" />
</label>
</form>[/color]

Here's the code for the following page and these echo statements don't show any values being passed:

[color=blue]if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {

echo "<p>you entered: " . ($_POST['dateOfBirth']) . "</p>";

echo "<p>you entered: " . ($_POST['firstName']) . "</p>";[/color]

the form continues......

I've recently upgraded to php5 and I'm sure this was working a few weeks ago before the upgrade, so is there some syntax error or anything else I've missed....?

[JasonLewis]

ok this error has been answered millions of times here. when your making the value="" your not echoing your php value...

this:
[code]<input type="hidden" name="firstName" value="<?php ($_POST['firstName']); ?>" />[/code]

should be this:
[code]<input type="hidden" name="firstName" value="<?php echo $_POST['firstName']; ?>" />[/code]

see how I added the echo $_POST['firstName']. Because you just had it as the variable php wasn't doing anything with it. take more care next time and good luck.

[sambib]

cheers....

when i was using php4 that code looked like this (and worked):

<input type="hidden" name="firstName" value="<?= $_POST['firstName']; ?>" />

but that doesn't work in php5 so i replace the [color=blue]<?=[/color] with [color=blue]<?php[/color], so the 'echo' wasn't required previously...

so there you go, you learn something new everyday....