Passing Variable through programs

Anon

Hi,
As a new PHP programmer I am stuggling to understand variables, The particular problem I have at the moment is how to pass text through 3 programs. The variable $username is created in the first program, displayed in the next program and written to a database in the third program. However nothing ever gets written.

I'd like to know of a good explaination of Variables and help with the above.

Thanks Murray

blizzard

Do you want to send these variables to web pages or are you just saying that you don't know how to call a function from another file? If you mean the first case, which I assume than note that there are three ways to pass a variable to the php program these are using get, post or cookies.

PHP gets executed on the server, which means that once on the client browser its dead. Hence you need to put your variable in a form element:

<FORM ACTION="second.php">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" VALUE="<?echo $variable ?>">
...

or to pass it to a cookie:
<?
setcookie("variable", $variable);
?>
note that in order for this to work you have to have this at the top of your code.

the second and third programs can access these variables either directly or by calling $HTTP_GET_VARS["variable"], $HTTP_POST_VARS["variable"], $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS["variable"] respectively depending on your php settings.

crimaniak

For programs
Serialize object with all information to file.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.wddx.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.serialize.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.unserialize.php

For pages
Use session variables. See session support in php manual.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php

Anon

Here is the problem:
Using the following simple example I want to pass the variable $uname collected in testa.php to program testb.php then to testc.php to write it to the screen or anywhere....must be a simple answer.
======prog: testa.php=========

<body>
<form method="post" action="testb.php">
Username: <input type="text" name="uname"><br>
Password: <input type="password" name="pw"><br>
<input type="submit"><input type="reset">
</body>

======prog: testb.php=========

<head>
<?php
if (($uname != "clinton") && ($pw != "cigar"))
{print "<script>alert('Sorry, wrong username/password');";
print "location.href='testa.php';</script>";
}
?>

</head>
<body>
Welcome to the admin screen!
Your username: <b><i><?php print $uname; ?></i></b>
<p>
Your password: <b><i><?php print $pw; ?></i></b>
<p><a href="testc.php">Proceed</a>
</body>

======prog: testc.php=========
<?php print "Hi Bill ".$uname; ?>

regards Murray