Keeping form variables?

[darthmahon]

Hi,

I have a sign up form and I am collecting details of customers for the first time so they can register on our system.

They are asked for their name, address, telephone number and email address. Now if they miss out any of those fields while filling out the form and they press submit, it shows up error messages of what they have missed. The problem is, the form fields they had filled out are now all blank, so they have to re type EVERYTHING. Annoying if only ONE thing was wrong...

How would I keep the variables they entered before and automatically insert them into the form fields so they don't have to write the informationg again?

Cheers,
Chris

[router]

You have to put the old values. That's mean...

<input type="text" name="my_name" value="$_POST['my_name']">

In value, you put the value that user has put in the form.
If it's the first time, the value it's nothing .."".
Do you understand me?
Good Luck!
Router

[darthmahon]

Ok I think I understand. So if the variable I have assigned for their name is: $name

Then I do this??

<input type="text" name="my_name" value="$_POST['$name']">

Or do I leave out the $name bit?

[darthmahon]

Ok I tried that, didn't work...have a look at my code, I don't use the POST VARS function stuff...so maybe that's why?

This is the code for one of my HTML forms.

<FORM name='register' method=post action="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">ID*</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input type="text" name="id" size="20" value="$_POST['id']" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;</td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <img border="0" src="/images/magic.png" width="129" height="28"></td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">First Name*</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Last Name*</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input type="text" name="firstname" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input name="lastname" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Address Line 1*</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Address Line 2</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input type="text" name="addressline1" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input name="addressline2" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">City*</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">County</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input type="text" name="city" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input name="county" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Country*</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Postcode*</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input type="text" name="country" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input name="postcode" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Telephone Number*</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <p class="Sidemenu">Email Address*</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input type="text" name="telephonenumber" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;
                    </td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right">
                    <input name="email" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                    <td width="21%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;</td>
                    <td width="13%" class="Date" align="right">&nbsp;</td>
                    <td width="33%" class="Date" align="right"><br>
      <a href="#" border="0" onclick="document.register.submit();">
      <input type="submit" value="Sign Up" style="font-size: 10pt; "></a>
</a>
<input type="hidden" name="formsubmit" value="1">
</form>

Any ideas?

[rheroux]

You need to escape out of your HTML and use PHP to get your variables to show up correctly.

So this:

<input type="text" name="id" size="20" value="$_POST['id']" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>

Should look like this:

<input type="text" name="id" size="20" value="<? echo $_POST['id']; ?>" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></td>

[xblue]

Everything that is php needs to be enclosed in <?php ?> tags as you do in in the first line.

Thus
<input type="text" name="id" size="20" value="$_POST['id']" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694">

should be:
<input type="text" name="id" size="20" value="<?php echo $_POST['id']; ?>" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694">

Otherwise it will simply be displayed as you entered it.

[darthmahon]

Thanx for all your help guys, but I've solved the problem.

I'm not using $_Post to post my variables, just instead using $variable name...

So it needed to be:

<input name="id" type="text" value="<?php echo $id; ?>">

Thanx for your help tho guys!