[Resolved] $PHP_SELF quirk

jakeone

It's not so much a problem but more unexpected behaviour...

I have a page called "admin.php" which calls the following function from "functions.php":

function edit_subscriber() {
global $subscriberID;
$sql = "SELECT * FROM subscribers WHERE subscriberID ='$subscriberID' ";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
$query_data=mysql_fetch_array($result);
?>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo($PHP_SELF);?>">
... HTML form populated with result set...
}

The code works fine. However, earlier I had written action="admin.php" instead of action="<?php echo($PHP_SELF);?>" I expected the code to still work but it returned an error. When I echoed out the sql statement, my $subscriberID variable was empty. Why was this? I thought it should work the same since $PHP_SELF would have been pointing back to admin.php anyway. Just curious.

drag0n

to my knowledge, $PHP_SELF means the page the form code is located on, the same page.....

cgraz

what was the error? Load the page in your browser, then view the source. In particular, the line hwere you form tag is. Is the name of the script there? Copy and paste that line and let us know what the error message is and maybe someone can help.

As for your subscriber id variable being empty: do you have globals set to on or off? It would be a safer bet to assume they were off and do this:

delete the global $subscriberID line

and change your $sql line to

$sql = "SELECT * FROM subscribers WHERE subscriberID ='".$_POST["subscriberID"]."'";

Then echo it out and see what happens.

Cgraz

jakeone

It's an error on my part. When I switch the action over to admin.php I failed to pass a hidden field carrying the $subscriberID variable - so the sql error failed. (Since I'm calling a different page - I'm calling admin.php from functions.php - the global $subscriberID variable in my function loses scope. Without this, and without my hidden field, I'm dead in the water).

When I was using the function, setting the action to $PHP_SELF ensured that the global $subscriberID variable retained scope (since I'm calling the same page) so the sql statement worked.

At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it 😉

ScorpSlet

well this is the solution (at least for php_self)

<? = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>

at least i think this would work