Newb going CrAyZiE!!!

prim3d

I have a form built in html. When sent it passes through a php mail script which i built.

I would like to know how to modify this form so that any entries that are not filled in within the html form, do not get sent by my standard php script! Do I have to incorporate some statements to my code or something?

I'm going CrAyZiE trying to figure out where to start! Please Help php guru's!

mykg4orce

lets say you have a couple fields, lets say: Name and Phone No. And these textfields are named properly. Because the name of the textfield is the variable you need to check for any missing information. So lets say your Name field is named "name='the_name'" so when the user clicks 'Submit' you should do this to check your variables.


if ($name == "") { //this line checks to see if the user entered anything at all
echo "please go back and fill in all the fields";
}

Just by that, I think you can figure out how to make your own statements to check for variables.

sarahk

there's also

if (isset($name))

as the form won't send a variable if it has no value.

mykg4orce

well it looks like that he doesn't want to send the var if its empty....but thats the same as sending an empty variable, unless your variable is bound by HTML formatting. But i think its a bad idea just to let an important variable go by without checking to see if contains the proper info. For example if its a email script and the user does not file an address and you ignore the empty vars, well then your script is going no where.

You should probably set up error handling for all required fields, and variable that are not required and are empty on submit, could be given a empty value, like N/A or None or whatever.

It all depends, you can use a lot of different methods depending on your needs. 🙂

p.s nice short code there sarah 🙂

prim3d

if ($name == "") { //this line checks to see if the user entered anything at all
echo "please go back and fill in all the fields";
}

In relation to the quote above, this will return the "please go back" if nothing has been inputted correct? If so then I am not looking in developing around such a structure, just to be able to check the forms items to see if their blank and not send them if they are. I hope you understand!!!

Just say the below is a form:
e.g. Name: [ this is the field] <---- if nothing entered i dont want it to send through email.

mykg4orce

i think sarah said it there... an empty variable is not sent. So if a user doesn't enter value in a field then the variable is not sent, thats the same as having an empty variable. So, in very short form, you dont need a structure to handle what you need. Because PHP wont bother and tell you that there is an empty variable. If the field is not important then leave it.

prim3d

I completely understand what everyone is saying! At first I thought it was completely the wrong way of approaching variables.

My partner has stated that he wants the site to be displayed and organised in that matter.

Thanks for all your input guys, I really appreciate it