Help for a Newbie

rjseals

I have an html form that will pass data to a php file that will update my mysql database. It works fine but I want to first have a confirmation page so they can check there info before they submit it. My question is how can I get the variables to the third page. I know how to pass then from the first to the second:

//firstpage.php
<form method = "post" action = "secondpage.php">

first_name
last_name
etc
</form>

Like I said I know how to get them from the first to the second page

//secondpage.php

$firstname = POST['first_name'];
$lastname = POST['last_name'];
ect

now in the secondpage.php I just print out what they put in the form to confirm but I would like to know how to pass the variables with info (first_name, last_name etc) into the thirdpage.php. so I can actually update the database (which I know how to do ).

Thank you

bretticus

My suggestion would be to use hidden form tags.

You could use sessions I suppose, but the session can time out in your guy get's up to watch television while it's on the confirm page 😉 ....

You could also write to the database in the first post and set a flag field in your database to true if it's accepted, etc. but that's just alot of unnecessary extra work.

Hidden tags work well (watch out for situtations where you can set a variable twice. Like submitting the form to itself, for example. You don't wanna end up with:

So you just do this on your confirmation page (apart from displaying what they have submitted.)

while (list($name, $value) = each($HTTP_POST_VARS)) {
          print "<input type='hidden' name='$name' value='$value'>\n";
}

rjseals

Thanks Bretticus,
I am a little confused as to the code your provided, could you explain in a little more detail the code your provided.

Thanks a lot!!
I really appreciate it!

bretticus

Sure,

$HTTP_POST_VARS is a global array variable that contains everything that has been submitted to the current page via POST. I believe $HTTP_POST_VARS is deprecated (old code) and $POST should work too. Actually, reading the manual a bit more says that they are not the same, so just use $POST.

So what I'm doing is using a combo of list (great function) and each to grab the current key and value pair while there are pairs to grab. list just sets the pair to individual variables (shortcut). This accomplishes hidden form fields with the same information the the user filled out on the preceeding page, then they review and approve, these values can then be passed to the next script for insertion into your database.