[Resolved] Posted variables are messed up

heliumflash01

All -

I've got a peculiar problem here, and it's probably got a fairly easy answer (e.g. flip a conf boolean setting), but it's got me stuck for now.

I'm running PHP 4.2.2 with Apache 2, though I just upgraded from a server running Apache 1.3.26 (I believe same version of PHP). The problem is that in my code (and even phpMyAdmin!), posting information in a text area messes up the variable's contents. I echo the var immediately on the other side, and it's already screwed up. For example, I have a simple form with only a text area (name=testVar) and a submit button. I enter:

hello there

and upon submission, I do a vardump and see:

string(30) "hello theretestVar=hello there"

So it seems that it's storing the actual value, as well as the name/value pair that you would normally see on the querystring for that var. When I submit large chunks of HTML through a textarea like that, it'll store maybe the first 5k characters, and then start over and append the entire content to that first 5k. In this case I don't see the "varName=" part (but the value is still there). Weird stuff.

Anyone know what's causing that? I suspect the upgrade to Apache 2 may have had something to do with it. Code that was previously working perfectly (like phpMyAdmin) is now reacting like this. I cruised through php.ini and didn't see anything that would help, so I'm wondering if there's an Apache directive I'm lacking, or if one changed meaning from 1.3 to 2.0.

Thanks,
Jeremy

heliumflash01

I just discovered that when I have the simple form described in the parent post, it acts like I said when there is only ONE input in the form, and it's the textarea. When I add a text field after the textarea, though, both variable values come through fine for simple values.

OTOH, when I use a two-field form like that, and put a large chunk of HTML in the textarea, the simple value in the text field still comes through fine, but the textarea one is still messed up as I previously described.

Really, really bizarre.

Anyone??

-Jeremy

kevinsequeira

can u post the actual code for the form page?

reg
kevin

heliumflash01

You got it. Here's test.php.

<?
print("<xmp>");
var_dump($testArea);
print("</xmp>");
?>

<html>
<head><title>Test Page</title></head>
<body>
  <form name="myForm" action="test.php" method="post">
    <textarea name="testArea" rows="10" cols="50"></textarea>
    <!--<input type="text" name="testField" size="50">-->
    <input type="submit" value="Submit">
  </form>
</body>
</html>

Notice that the text field's commented out now. Uncommenting it makes a simple value for testArea (e.g. "test1") come through just fine. With the comments in place, though, the value would show as "test1testArea=test1".

-Jeremy

dniezby

I create A LOT of forms and I'd say that I've perfected the usage of them. (In my own world that is.)

What is it that you're actually trying to do?

Are you simply trying to have the text field emailed to someone?

Are you trying to post the text area field to screen?

There is a rule in MANY worlds - business, programming & LIFE and that is Keep It Simple.

I see a step in your little script that doesn't need to be there...At least in your example. Maybe if you're trying to do something else?

Let me know what you're trying to do with the data and I will see if I can help.

Here are your choices

Send Textarea info via email to a recipient
Post the information to screen
write the information to a Database for storage.

heliumflash01

The form I posted here doesn't have a practical purpose. It's a simple test form I'm using, stripped of all complexities, to demonstrate the problem I'm describing. What aspect do you think is excessive? All it should do is gather 1 (or 2, depending) values and then directly vardump the resulting variables to the screen, so I can see how they got altered on their way back to me.

If you were to hit this page, it should work fine for you, and just spit out a vardump of what you put in the textarea. For me, PHP/Apache seems to append stuff to that var before giving it back to my script.

-Jeremy

heliumflash01

Okay, I figured out what was going on. As I suspected, it turned out to be Apache directives.

When I made the server switch, I used the PHP-Mysql RPM instead of building from source. The RPM, it turns out, installs a certain file, /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf, that holds Apache configuration directives for PHP. I wasn't aware this file existed until I happened upon it accidentally.

The file's contents were thus:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
LoadModule php4_module modules/libphp4.so

#
# Cause the PHP interpreter handle files with a .php extension.
#
<Files *.php>
    SetOutputFilter PHP
    SetInputFilter PHP
    LimitRequestBody 524288
</Files>

#
# Add index.php to the list of files that will be served as directory
# indexes.
#
DirectoryIndex index.php

The Apache directives enclosed in the <Files/> chunk were corrupting my POST data -- most specifically the SetInputFilter directive. I did a search for this type of thing online with my newfound knowledge, and immediately found this related thread, where the problem is described by someone else, much more lucidly than I mustered here:

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=19263

I missed it before due to different wording. 🙁 Thanks for everyone's help -- I truly appreciate it.

-Jeremy

P.S. For the benefit of future searchers, here's a batch of nice terms: garbled, garbles, corrupted, corrupts, mangled, mangles, mixes, mixed, messed, screws, screwed, post, data, files, bytes, form, page, textarea, PHP, Apache 2, submit, value, HTML. 😉

dniezby

Actually you didn't need to do any of that.

You wanted to post the variables to screen right?

Here is what you'd need and it's all done in php.

<?php
extract($_GET);
extract($_POST);

if ($submit) {
      echo (stripslashes($message));
    }
    else{
    ?>
    <html>
    <body>
    <form method="POST" action="<?php echo $PHP_SELF?>">
    <input type=text name="sender"><BR>
    <textarea name="message" cols=50 rows=10></textarea><BR>
    <input type=submit name="submit" value=Send>
    </form>
    </body>
    </html>
    <?php
    }
    ?>

This is all you need to do.

dniezby

I saw your post after my update...
I see you didn't have PHP set up correctly.

heliumflash01

Hehe....I don't know what you mean by "any of that." Obviously we agree I need the form. The only other thing I have there is a simple vardump that could've been a one-liner; the <xmp> tags were there so that HTML could be submitted and displayed on the screen without being rendered as valid tags by the browser.

All else aside, you transformed my 16 lines into 21. 😉

And speaking of not having to do things, we don't have to extract $GET, since we know we're POSTing. You're right about $POST, though -- but my server at the time of the setup had register_globals on, so while it's better not to use it, that's the "mode" I was in.

As I said, it wasn't to be emailed, saved to a file, or inserted into a database, and it wasn't supposed to look pretty. Simple proof-of-concept (or proof-of-corruption, in this case).

Thanks again for your input.

-Jeremy