Some Form Validation Directions

[menios]

I m new to php and i m currently trying to create a server side form validation with php.

The idea is to send the user's  input to an errors.php that checks the integrity of input and then store it to a database, if i m not wrong. There are  many errors here so if someone can look at the code and point  some basic instructions  on what i m doing wrong with my functions?

 

Thanks in advance for the help

 

My Form

[hr]<form action="errors.php" method="post" name="Errors" onreset="return confirm('Do you want to reset the form?')" >	



    			

<h2> Create a User Account:<br></h2>
		  

<fieldset>
<legend>Personal Info</legend>
	 <table border="0">	
		<tr > 
			<th><label for="Username">*Username</label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="username" id="Username" value="" maxlength="15" class="Username" ></td>
		<tr > 
			<th><label for="Name">*Name</label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="name" id="Name" value="" maxlength="15" class="First Name" ></td>
		</tr>
		<tr > 
			<th><label for="Surname">*Surname</label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="surname" id="Surname" value="" maxlength="20" class="Surname" ></td>
		</tr>	
		<tr>				
			<th><label for="password">*Password</label></th>

			<td><input type="password" name="password" id="password"   maxlength="15" class="password" ></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th><label for="password2">*Confirm Pass.</label></th>

			<td><input type="password" name="Password2" id="password2"  maxlength="15" class="password" ></td>
		</tr>		
</table>
</fieldset>

    <fieldset>
 <legend>Contact Details</legend>
<table  border="0">
		<tr>
			<th><label for="email">*Email     </label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="email" id="email"  maxlength="25" class="email" ></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th><label for="Phone">Phone     </label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="phone" id="Phone"  maxlength="10" class="phone" ></td>
		</tr>
	</table>
    </fieldset>


                <fieldset> 
<legend>Postal Address</legend>

<table border="0">
		<tr> 
			<th><label for="Town">*Town</label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="town" id="Town" value="" maxlength="20" class="town" ></td>
		</tr>

		<tr> 
			<th><label for="Address">*Address</label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="address" id="Address" value="" maxlength="30" class="address" ></td>
		</tr>

		<tr> 
			<th><label for="PostCode">*PostCode</label></th>

			<td><input type="text" name="postCode" id="PostCode" value="" maxlength="8" class="Post Code" ></td>
		</tr>


	</table>

			<input  id="submit" type="submit" value="Sign Up">
			<input  id="reset"  type="reset"  value="Reset">								

	 </fieldset>

</form>

 

 

And my errors.php

[hr]<?php
extract($_POST);
/* Validation */
/*USername*/
function checkUsername($username)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\.\-\Ä\ä\Ö\ö\Ü\ü\
   ]+$/s",$username))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/*Name*/
function checkName($name)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^a-zA-Z\\Ä\ä\Ö\ö\Ü\ü\
   ]+$/s",$name))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/*Surname*/
function checkSurname($surname)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^a-zA-Z\\Ä\ä\Ö\ö\Ü\ü\
   ]+$/s",$surname))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/*Password*/
function checkPassword($password) {
  $length = strlen ($password);
  if ($length <  {
    return FALSE;
  }
  $unique = strlen (count_chars ($password, 3));
  $difference = $unique / $length;
  echo $difference;
  if ($difference < .60) {
    return FALSE;
  }
  return preg_match ("/[A-z]+[0-9]+[A-z]+/", $password);
}
/*Email*/
function checkEmail($email) {
  $pattern = "/^[A-z0-9\._-]+"
         . "@"
         . "[A-z0-9][A-z0-9-]*"
         . "(\.[A-z0-9_-]+)*"
         . "\.([A-z]{2,6})$/";
  return preg_match ($pattern, $email);
}
/*Phone*/
function checkPhone($phone)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^0-9\ ]+$/",$phone))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/*Town*/
function checkTown($town)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^a-zA-Z\\Ä\ä\Ö\ö\Ü\ü\
   ]+$/s",$town))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/*Address*/
function checkAddress($address)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\.\-\Ä\ä\Ö\ö\Ü\ü\
   ]+$/s",$address))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/*PostCode*/
function checkPostCode($postCode)
{
  if(!preg_match("/[^0-9]+$/ ",$postcode))
    return TRUE;
  else
    return FALSE;
}
/* Validation */

$error=0; // check up variable

/* get it checking */

if(!checkUsername($username))
{
  echo "Illegal input $username in 'Username'";
  $error++; // $error=$error+1;
}
if(!checkName($name))
{
  echo "Illegal input $name in 'Name'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkSurname($surname))
{
  echo "Illegal input $surname in 'Surname'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkPassword($password))
{
  echo "Illegal input $password in 'Password'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkEmail($email))
{
  echo "Illegal input $email in 'Email'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkPhone($phone))
{
  echo "Illegal input $phone in 'phone'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkTown($town))
{
  echo "Illegal input $town in 'Town'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkAddress($address))
{
  echo "Illegal input $address in 'Address'";
  $error++;
}
if(!checkPostCode($postcode))
{
  echo "Illegal input $postcode in 'PostCode'";
  $error++;
}

if($error == 0)
{
  echo
  "
  The data you entred was correct, thank you!<p>
  Your data:<br>
  Your Username: $username<br>
  Your Name: $name<br>
  Your Surname: $surname<br>
  Your Email: $email<br>
  Your Town: $town<br>
  Your Address: $address<br>
  Your phone: $phone<br>
  Your PostCode: $postcode<br>
  ";
}else{
  echo "Number of errors: $error";
}

?>

[revraz]

Why not just check it on the same page and send it to the DB if it's valid?

[menios]

How could i check it?

I d prefer to use php cause i m not familia with JS at all.

Could i pass all these functions in the form.html?

And how could i do that?

Too many questions sorry..

[boushley]

yes, make your form.html a form.php.  And have the form submit to itself.  Then you wrap your PHP in an if(isset($_POST[...])) 

 

You have quite a few naming capitalization problems.  Where you didn't follow your convention.  Such as with the postal code on the errors.php code.

[darkfreaks]

<?php
if (isset($submit)) { //do stuff
} else { //do stuff

}?>

[menios]

I ll start and i ll post questions along the way thanks

[revraz]

Remember, variables are case sensitive.

[Distant_storm]

Its always best to make validaiton as a function / universal that way you could do something like.

 

validate_data('TYPE','string');

 

example

 

validate_data('Email',$string);

 

within the function you could have a switch case between different forms of validation. such as email,numbers only,letters only,single digits,dates. You could then output a flag and do this

 

if (validate_data('email',$string) {

 

echo "your data is corrrect";

 

}

 

This makes the function re-usable. Takes less code, less space, less effort of typing it out for every form u need to validate. and if any changes are needed to your code to check something else you only have to change one bit of code and not loadz.