Form data validation

[Anon]

Hi,

PHP newbie here, trying to validate form data. I did a search for a solution but did not understand the other posts concerning this subject.

Here's what I want to do:

I have a form that accepts input to search a database. I want to make sure that the user inputs data in the form field and that at least 3 characters are inputed. I currently use javascript but users can turn that off so I want to use PHP.

Here are the form tags in the current html form (I am just using 2 fields in this example). If I rename the form myform.php what would be the php coding I would need to add to accomplish my objective?

<form action="cgi-bin/myscript.cgi" method=post>
<input type=text name=field1>
<input type=text name=field2>
<input type=submit value=search>

</form>

Thanks! Again, I am new and trying to learn PHP but since I don't know any other programming languages it is difficult. If you could just write a code example I would be most grateful!

[mwilson]

In you php code, you can use functions to check certain things about the submitted data. For example, using strlen() you can check the length of an inputted string, I would suggest looking at the PHP manual (http://www.php.net/) for other useful functions for data validation.

HTH

Matt

P.s. if(strlen($field1)>3) { // good } else { // bad }

[Anon]

Matt,

Yes, I suspected it could be done, I was sorta hoping someone could provide a little code. Like I said I am new to PHP and not a programmer of other languages either so I don't understand functions, etc.

If I were going to be doing a lot of this I would certainly get a book and learn it, however this is all I need. Oh well, I can just keep using javascript I guess.

I just found this forum and this was my first post, so perhaps I posted in the wrong place. If this is just for programmers I offer my apologies.