POST variable and page refresh issue

[jasonlive]

hey all,

 

i am a bit lost on this one.

i have a single php page

 

it has a login form

a submit new timesheet form

and a display my timesheets table. this is updated as soon as the user submits a new timesheet.

 

my issue is, after a timesheet has been submitted once, the table will add a row from the database and its great. but if i page refresh, it submits another identical timesheet. this happens even if i unset all the post variables.

 

what is the best resolution. is there some kind of cookie i have to use? i'd rather avoid cookies. i'd also rather avoid having a second php file.

 

i dont fully understand the $_POST variable concept. why are they not unset?

 

[brianlange]

If you do a header(Location: your-html-page.php) you should be able to avoid the duplicate insert on refresh.

Or if you have unique values being inserted you could do a select statement before you do the insert.

[jasonlive]

i tried the header() idea but my browser outputs an infinite loop

 

i will attempt a better select statement

[mac_gyver]

the header() redirect goes inside your form processing logic so that it is only executed when there is $_POST data.

[vinny42]

 

Or if you have unique values being inserted you could do a select statement before you do the insert.

 

Uniqueness cannot be guaranteed that way, it can only be done by a unique constraint in the database.

But in this case there is nothing that has to be unique, it's even possible that the new data must overwrite existing data.