Form handling style question

kurtsu

I see a lot of forms that are built like this:

I've also seen this:

where formhandler.php does its work (saves or updates data in the database, most likely), then redirects to the next page in the flow (which could be back, or up, or anywhere, really).

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these styles (I'll call them 'self' and 'handler')? I'm interested in maintainability first, then performance, then everything else.

It seems that the 'self' style could get better performance since the php script is pretty much guaranteed to be in memory and with an optimizer it'll be faster the second time through. But it's cluttered with code for multiple purposes (drawing the page, handling form submission), and it'll be bigger and thus load slower the first time through.

There's a hybrid style, where PHP files are 'included as needed for the intended function of the page, e.g.

if ($action='submit') {
include_once("handler.inc");
} else {
include_once("draw_page.inc");
}

This might defeat the optimizers, though.

Any hints and tips will be appreciated. I'm getting ready to build a site with PHP and (probably) MySQL, and I'd like to get thie right (whatever 'right' means) the first time.

TIA

--Kurt

Anon

I prefer to have easily readable and maintainable code (especially since I distribute my code). Forms that refer to themselves and have case by case includes generally are a hassle to read and understand. You can alleviate this somewhat with functions and (heh!) more includes. I also think it's less intuitive to redirect to yourself.

The primary disadvantage of this approach is that you get to have many many files. At some point you probably need to consolidate. If your editor doesn't handle multiple files well it can aso be a problem =)

I have no idea how the optimizers would deal with it but it would seem your conjectures are correct.

Anon

If you write just a simple script that doesn't use several files I find $PHP_SELF an extremely valuable variable. The truth is that I can use only one file and embed as much code in there as I want to perform different processes. Plus all your code is in one file, which is another advantage.

For example you can have a form that lists tables in a database, deletes some of the tables or updates them or whatever. Using $PHP_SELF all can be done within one file.

If you are really savvy you can use classes with it...

At any rate both methods are fine...

kurtsu

I also think it's less intuitive to redirect to yourself.

So what do you do? Do you pass the name of the next page to your formhandler?

My first PHP project is pretty much all forms, with all dynamic pages (different user auth levels get different options). There is a top-level user page, and it's fairly safe to redirect there after any form is submitted for a user, but some users will be doing the same task repeatedly (entering the other users in their organization, for example) and it would be most efficient for them to stay on the data entry page until they're done.

There are about 20 pages, if you include the admin tools but not the different user auth options (one page can have 4 different 'looks' based on auth level).

This seems to be different from most PHP 'apps', where the dynamic part is mostly output and mostly not forms. This site is a perfect example; how many forms are there in this site? How many different pages?

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

--Kurt