passing data between forms

Anon

I have a php script which
(1) extracts a player list out of database and sticks it in a form for user to select a team
(2) validates selected team against certain rules

If validation is successful, I want to

(3) ask if user wants to register team
(4) another form to get user information
(5) update some database tables with all the info.

How do I pass the selected team into subsequent processing? In (3) I need a form and button to see if use wants to continue followed by a further form to get user details. How do I keep the info from the first form?
Should I include it in the subsequent forms as hidden fields or is there a way to tag it on to the form or should I save it to a temporary table.....

thanks for helping a newbie....

Anon

two ways of doing it :
1) pass it through the url (call a url www.xxx.com/page.php?var=content

2)use hidden fields.

Anon

Returning the team information to the browser in hidden fields would allow users to tamper with information after your validation phase and so they could by-pass this validation.

I would go for storage in a 'pending_player_list' table whilst the process is finished. If the user completes the process then these records can be flushed from the table. The only problem then is users who dont finish the process and leave these records hanging around. You could write a seperate process which deletes these records if they are over a day old (or whatever). remeber to timestamp them ;-)

Anon

I would suggest the hidden fields. For a few reasons. First and most important, they are never seen by the user (unless they view source). Secondly, it is easy on the programmer.

Anon

You are off course rigth. However, wouldn't it be possible to do the validation after loading the second form. That way, you can safely use hidden fields.

Anon

I went for the option of passing an array of the validated team as a hidden form item to subsequent pages. As this is for an office based competition with approx 100 members, I dont expect people to try and cheat.
I guess other options would be to store the team in a cookie or as session variables, but at the moment I'm happy enough and am too busy chasing up other areas.

Thanks for all the help,
Martin