Displaying variables on a Form

Anon

I am passing, as part of the redirection header function, variables from a form as:

. . . /nextform.htm?name=$theName&category=$category;

The category holds the value "car".

On the new form, when I try to display the variable category as:

<p>Your Category:<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="category" VALUE="<? echo $category; ?>" >

what I get in the text box is the literal "<? echo $category; ?>"

instead of the actual value "car"

Any suggestions?

linusx007

Hello,
Then your html form is not being parsed by php. You need to change that to a php page.

Bill

edwardsbc

Yes, normally only .php3 or .php files are parsed by the PHP engine before being passed to the web server. This is configurable (in the web server), but not worth the hassle unless you absolutely must have files named .htm or .html.

Just rename the file to .php.

Anon

I guess I never thought of the type of Form file I was dealing with -- .htm vs. php3.

This clears up a lot of misconceptions I have had about Forms. Maloni shows an example of her "All in one" Form on p. 125, and it works. But I didn't give it much thought until now. She "wraps" the entire Form using :

<?
$form_block = "<FORM METHOD = (etc.)
</FORM>";
?>

My model was pretty much using .htm files for all Forms and .php files for all form processing. I think I'll stick to this new model of just using .php files for my Forms!

edwardsbc

Good plan. Then, even if a page starts out as pure html, it is easy to add PHP "code" to it later should the need arise.

Personnally, I like to put the form and form processing code in the same file. I just test for the submit variable on entry and branch to the processing or form display section as appropriate. This makes it easy to keep the variables straight as you always have in sight (so to speak).