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ThunderP · Jul 28, 2002, 11:26 PM

hi, i bought a book on learning php from B&N recently, the php package i have installed on my machine is the one from Marc Liyanage's site. in the beginning of the book, he shows how to set up a simple form that lets you fill out info and then it is spit back at you on the next page. however, it does not work for me, even tho i copied the source, charachter for charachter from the book. the form i have set up is @ <a href="http://thunderpoit.shacknet.nu/php_lernin/form.html" target="_blank">http://thunderpoit.shacknet.nu/php_lernin/form.html</a> . btw, the book is PHP for the world wide web by larry ullman and is from the visual quickstart series. here is the source for the form and the form handler:

html form:
html>
head>
title>HTML Form/title>
/head>
body>
form action="handleform.php" method=post>
First Name input type=text name="FirstName" size=20>br>
Last Name input type=text name="LastName" size=40>br>
E-mail Address input type=text name="Email"size=60>br>
Comments textarea name="Comments" rows=5 cols=40>/textarea>br>
input type=submit name="submit" value="Submit!">
/form>
/body>
/html>

form handlder:
html>
head>
title>Form Results/title>
body>
?php
print "your first name is $FirstName.br>\n";
print "your last name is $LastName.br>\n";
print "your E-mail address is $Email.br>\n";
print "this is what you had to say: br>\n $Commentsbr>\n";
?>
/body>
/html>

what it spits out is:

your first name is .
your last name is .
your E-mail address is .
this is what you had to say:

anyone know why it wont work? do i have to get the full version of php from php.net or should the version that i have work fine?

thx in advance,
-php newb.

[ 07-29-2002, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: ThunderP ]

malson · Jul 28, 2002, 11:45 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ThunderP:

code, code, code<hr /></blockquote>All of your tags are missing the leading "<". I'm assuming that you edited them out because you can't post html on the forums. If you didn;t edit them out and they are truly missing, try adding them in

One other thing to check is to make sure when you process the forum using php that you are calling the same variable that the form defines. If you want the results stored in $name, call $name...not $name.br> or anything.

sahara · Jul 28, 2002, 11:52 PM

What version of PHP are you using? If 4.2 or above you should:
echo "your first name is $HTTP_POST_VARS[FirstName].br>\n";

Read <a href="http://www.php.net/release_4_2_0.php" target="_blank">http://www.php.net/release_4_2_0.php</a> for more info about external variables (i.e. using $HTTP_POST_VARS[FirstName] or $_POST[FirstName] instead of simply $FirstName). You may or may not want to turn on register_globals in your php.ini file so you can use $FirstName but be sure to read that page first.

tinrib · Jul 28, 2002, 11:57 PM

edit what version of php are you running - there was a change recently in the defaults that would break your script, namely register_globals was ON and is now OFF. Thus your form variables are currently only accessible using the $_POST variable (an array).

Changing your php to read as follows should fix it:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><?php
print "your first name is $_POST["FirstName"]. \n";
print "your last name is $_POST["LastName"]. \n";
print "your E-mail address is $_POST["Email"]. \n";
print "this is what you had to say: \n $_POST["Comments"] \n";
?></pre><hr /></blockquote>However you could also create a php.ini file and include in it the line:

register_globals = On

To find out where the php.ini file should be, create a php file called phpinfo.php containing the line <blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"><?php phpinfo(); ?></pre><hr /></blockquote>and then open it in your browser. Amongst all the other useful information is the location of your php.ini file. You may have to create it if it doesn't already exist in that location. (/usr/local/lib/php.ini on my computer).

Hope this helps

tinrib · Jul 29, 2002, 12:00 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by sahara:
What version of PHP are you using? If 4.2 or above you should:
echo "your first name is $HTTP_POST_VARS[FirstName].br>\n";

Read <a href="http://www.php.net/release_4_2_0.php" target="_blank">http://www.php.net/release_4_2_0.php</a> for more info about external variables (i.e. using $HTTP_POST_VARS[FirstName] or $_POST[FirstName] instead of simply $FirstName). You may or may not want to turn on register_globals in your php.ini file so you can use $FirstName but be sure to read that page first.<hr /></blockquote>beeyatch! I though I had got there first

As for the register_globals directive, it doesn't really make php any more secure at all IMO and it is pretty harmless to leave it on. However it is sensible to stick to using $_POST on any scripts you write from now on as they will run whether the directive is set or not. I believe $HTTP_POST_VARS is for pre version 4.1 but I may be wrong...

sahara · Jul 29, 2002, 08:34 AM

Yeah $HTTP_POST_VARS has been replaced with $_POST but I wasn't positive what version he was using, and I often still use $HTTP_POST_VARS for backwards compatibility. I write a lot of PHP software that has to work on different versions. $HTTP_POST_VARS still works on 4.2.x even though $_POST has been added.

As for security, I don't often run into situations where register_globals on is a problem, but it can be. Especially in multi-user environments where security is a must. At any rate, if you're a careful coder you can make a secure system even with register_globals turned on. You just have to be aware of what can be done when it's on.

ThunderP · Jul 29, 2002, 02:23 PM

hey, wow, theres a little code button that lets u post code, amazing how observant i am.......
the version of php i am running is 4.2.1. so enough has changed in php that the book im using is obsolete?

i tried using the edited code that tinrib posted:
<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> <?php
print "your first name is $_POST["FirstName"]. \n";
print "your last name is $_POST["LastName"]. \n";
print "your E-mail address is $_POST["Email"]. \n";
print "this is what you had to say: \n $_POST["Comments"] \n";
?></pre><hr /></blockquote>however, i got htis as an error:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '\"', expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /Library/WebServer/Documents/php_lernin/handleform.php on line 7
<hr /></blockquote>

sahara · Jul 29, 2002, 03:22 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ThunderP:
hey, wow, theres a little code button that lets u post code, amazing how observant i am.......
the version of php i am running is 4.2.1. so enough has changed in php that the book im using is obsolete?

i tried using the edited code that tinrib posted:
<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> <?php
print "your first name is $_POST["FirstName"]. \n";
print "your last name is $_POST["LastName"]. \n";
print "your E-mail address is $_POST["Email"]. \n";
print "this is what you had to say: \n $_POST["Comments"] \n";
?></pre><hr /></blockquote>however, i got htis as an error:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '\"', expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /Library/WebServer/Documents/php_lernin/handleform.php on line 7
<hr /></blockquote><hr /></blockquote>Whatever book you are using is probably fine. But there are some things that have changed from release to release. If you scan the release announcements you can see what has changed between the version your book is using and the version you are. PHP has not changed dramatically enough for me to believe your book is unusable.

As for your error, the problem is with your quotes. For example:
print "your first name is $_POST["FirstName"]. \n";
is incorrect because you cannot put quotes inside quotes. You could either:
1) print "your first name is $_POST[\"FirstName\"]. \n";
or
2) print "your first name is $_POST[FirstName]. \n";
In 1, the backslash in front of the quotes around FirstName "escapes" the quotes so you can embed them inside other quotes. In 2, you can see that the quotes are actually not required to access a $_POST element. Another way you can deal with this is:
print "your first name is ".$_POST["FirstName"].". \n";
Your book should cover these syntax issues. Good luck!

[ 07-29-2002, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: sahara ]

ThunderP · Jul 29, 2002, 03:27 PM

ahhh, thankies