Variable mailing problems

jonman

Here is what I need to do. I have an autoplay cd I will be distributing which runs a program and within this program there comes a time when it will POST some information to a php script on my website.

This script, takes the variables, organizes them how I tell it to and then mails it to me.

This worked fine when i tested it off of my own computer server. But when I through it on the web at my host it no longer worked. It would still email me, but all the variables are left blank (i.e it seems the script never recived the POSTed information). My only guess is that my host doesn't allow posting from outside sources. Is this something that's possible, or a common thing among PHP hosts?

I've contacted them but I want to know if it's somethign I should be complaining about or if this is how everyone does it.

Also, if anyone knows any work around that would be great.

Thanks for your help!

matt_4013

How are you referring to the variables in your script?

Are you using the POST superglobals, like this:
$_POST['variable'];
Or are you just using normal ones like this:
$variable

jonman

I'm using $_POST['']. My script follows, I'm pretty sure there's not anything wrong with it.. When i get the email off my servers all the variables are blank.

<?php
$resume=$POST['resume'];
$resume2=$POST['resume2'];
$resume3=$POST['resume3'];
$resume4=$POST['resume4'];
$demo=$POST['demo'];
$writing=$POST['writing'];
$about=$POST['about'];
$reviews=$POST['reviews'];
$Chile=$POST['911'];
$lilian=$POST['lilian'];
$takriti=$POST['takriti'];
$teaching=$POST['teaching'];
$radio=$POST['radio'];
$laststory=$POST['laststory'];

$message="The following is a report of pages the user viewed\n\n
Resume - $resume\n
Resume2 - $resume2\n
Resume3 - $resume3\n
Resume4 - $resume4\n
Demo Reel - $demo\n
Writing - $writing\n
About - $about\n
Reviews - $reviews\n
On the demo reel page, the following stories were viewed:
911 - $Chile\n
Lilian - $lilian\n
Takriti - $takriti\n
Teaching - $teaching\n
Radio - $radio\n\n
The last story viewed was $laststory";

mail("myemail","page views",$message,"From: autoplay\n");
?>

Thanks again for the help

matt_4013

nah, you're right, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm assuming you're right in thinking the host has disabled external post vars.

btw, what you may find a little easier when you're coding something like this, rather than doing:

$blah = $_POST['blah'];
$blah2 = $_POST['blah2'];
$blah3 = $_POST['blah3'];

You could do something like this:

foreach($_POST as $key=>$value) {

$$key = $value;
}

This will loop through all the posted variables, and set them the way you wanted 🙂

jonman

Thanks for the quick reply and the tip.

Do you know if disabling post variables is something that is common with hosts? or if there's a good reason for it.

matt_4013

I've never used a host who's done it, but I don't know if it's common or not. The reason WHY you'd do it, is security.

jonman

Is there something I would look for in phpinfo.php that would tell me whether my suspisions are true or not?