form radio/checkbox issue

kathy1234

Help!

I'm losing my mind over here, as I'm trying to teach myself PHP. I love the script, it's awesome...but I don't know how to get around this. I've got a simple contact.htm file that posts to contact.php, but when I attempt to make it work with either checkboxes or radio buttons, I go stupid.

Here's a snippet of what I've got:

HTML:

Preferred method of contact <br>
<input type="radio" name="contact" value="Telephone" /> Telephone
<input type="radio" name="contact" value="Email" /> Email
<input type="radio" name="contact" value="Mail" /> Snail Mail

<input type="radio" name="contact" value="Fax" /> Fax  

PHP:

$contact = $HTTP_POST_VARS['contact'];.....<snip>

$mailbody.="Best Method of Contact: $contact\n\n"; ......<snip>

mail($recipient,$subject,$mailbody,"From: $email\nX-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion());

mail($email, "Thank You",$thankbody,"From: me@myemail.com\nX-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion());
header("location:$thankyouurl" );
?>

It forwards to the thankyouurl, but does not submit the form data to my email nor does the person filling out a form get an autoresponse. I'm not using SQL to do a query, I'm just doing a straight post and reply. Any ideas, oh wise ones?

I thank you in advance for your help!
Kathy

Shrike

Hard to say without more info...check that $HTTP_POST_VARS does in fact have the data, using var_dump or print_r. You can also check the return value of mail() to see whats happening there.

kathy1234

I don't know what you need to see, specifically, so I'll post the entire PHP file. Remember, I'm not using a database function. I'm just doing a quick autoresponse to them with it posting to an email to me. It has worked in the past without a problem, so I assume my problem is in the radio buttons which are new in this case. I appreciate any help you could provide. Here it is (sorry for taking up the bandwidth):

<?
/
/

// ------------- CONFIGURABLE SECTION ------------------------

// -------------------- END OF CONFIGURABLE SECTION ---------------

$name = $HTTP_POST_VARS['name'];
$last_name = $HTTP_POST_VARS['last_name'];
$address = $HTTP_POST_VARS['address'];
$address2 = $HTTP_POST_VARS['address2'];
$city = $HTTP_POST_VARS['city'];
$state = $HTTP_POST_VARS['state'];
$zip = $HTTP_POST_VARS['zip'];
$email = $HTTP_POST_VARS['email'];
$phone = $HTTP_POST_VARS['phone'];
$fax = $HTTP_POST_VARS['fax'];
$contact = $HTTP_POST_VARS['contact'];
$calltime = $HTTP_POST_VARS['calltime'];
$comments = $HTTP_POST_VARS['comments'];

$thankyouurl = "http://www.mywebsite.com/thank_you.htm";
$recipient = "me@myemail.com";
$subject = "Test form went through";
$mailbody.="Your contact page was filled out with the following information:\n\n";
$mailbody.="Name: name\n";

$mailbody.="Address: $address\n";
$mailbody.="Address: $address2\n";
$mailbody.="City, State Zip: $city, $state $zip\n";
$mailbody.="Email: $email\n";
$mailbody.="Phone: $phone\n\n";
$mailbody.="Fax: $fax\n\n";
$mailbody.="Best Method of Contact: $contact\n\n";
$mailbody.="Best Time to Call: $calltime\n\n";
$mailbody.="Comments: $comments\n\n";

$thankbody="Dear $name,\n\n";

$thankbody.="Thank you for signing my guestbook. I will get working on the reports you requested right away, and I will be in contact with you shortly. Be sure to check out my Free Reports page for valuable information that could save you thousands of dollars on your next transaction. \n\n";
$thankbody.="Thank you for your interest,\n\n";
$thankbody.="me\n";
$thankbody.="me@myemail.com\n";
$thankbody.="http://www.mywebsite.com";

laserlight

Does the form work without "either checkboxes or radio buttons"?
If it doesnt, first try to make that work.

Shrike

Here is a working example of checkboxes

<?php

$html = "<form method=\"post\" action=\"test.php\">
	<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"test\" value=\"test\">\n
	<input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" value=\"submit\">\n
	</form>
	";
!isset($_POST['submit'])
	and print($html);
isset($_POST['submit'])
	and print_r($_POST);
exit;

?>

If your not getting the data from the form then thats probably why the mail() function isn't working either.

HTH

kathy1234

Laserlight, yes it works just fine without the radio buttons or checkboxes. I've modified it to work on about 6 different pages, but once I put the radio buttons or checkboxes in - it doesn't do anything as far as email's concerned (to recipient or sender), it only does the thankyouurl forwarding.

kathy1234

Shrike, I will attempt to make the isset string you offered work later this morning. I haven't had much success with isset's in the past, but hopefully this time it'll work!

Thanks for the code!

Shrike

It was really to point out that you should print_r the $_POST array to make sure you have the data you need before you use it.

As far as isset(), you should really do

isset($variable) && $variable != ''

To be really sure you have what you need 🙂

portaloo

kathy your problem is that all your checkboxes are named the same. they all need distinct names. when contact.php gets the info it is trying to stuff an arrays worth of variables into 1 variable not possible i,m afraid.

<input type="radio" name="telephone" value="Telephone" /> Telephone
<input type="radio" name="email" value="Email" /> Email
<input type="radio" name="mail" value="Mail" /> Snail Mail
<input type="radio" name="fax" value="Fax" /> Fax

etc

Shrike

Doh 🙂

kathy1234

Okay, I'm just not getting it. It doesn't appear to be different on the surface (it doesn't email anyone, but forwards to the thankyouurl). Here's what things look like now:

HTML:

...<snippage>...
<input type="radio" name="telephone" value="Telephone" /> Telephone
<input type="radio" name="email" value="Email" /> Email
<input type="radio" name="mail" value="Mail" /> Snail Mail
<input type="radio" name="fax" value="Fax" /> Fax

...<snip>...

PHP:

<?
/
/

// ------------- CONFIGURABLE SECTION ------------------------

// -------------------- END OF CONFIGURABLE SECTION ---------------

$name = $HTTP_POST_VARS['name'];
$last_name = $HTTP_POST_VARS['last_name'];
$address = $HTTP_POST_VARS['address'];
$address2 = $HTTP_POST_VARS['address2'];
$city = $HTTP_POST_VARS['city'];
$state = $HTTP_POST_VARS['state'];
$zip = $HTTP_POST_VARS['zip'];
$email = $HTTP_POST_VARS['email'];
$phone = $HTTP_POST_VARS['phone'];
$fax = $HTTP_POST_VARS['fax'];
$Telephone = $HTTP_POST_VARS['Telephone'];
$Email = $HTTP_POST_VARS['Email'];
$Mail = $HTTP_POST_VARS['Mail'];
$Fax = $HTTP_POST_VARS['Fax'];
$calltime = $HTTP_POST_VARS['calltime'];
$comments = $HTTP_POST_VARS['comments'];

$thankyouurl = "http://www.mywebsite.com/thank_you.htm";
$recipient = "me@myemail";
$subject = "Test form went through";
$mailbody.="Your contact page was filled out with the following information:\n\n";
$mailbody.="Name: name\n";

$mailbody.="Address: $address\n";
$mailbody.="Address: $address2\n";
$mailbody.="City, State Zip: $city, $state $zip\n";
$mailbody.="Email: $email\n";
$mailbody.="Phone: $phone\n\n";
$mailbody.="Fax: $fax\n\n";
$mailbody.="Best Method of Contact: $Telephone $Email $Mail $Fax\n\n";
$mailbody.="Best Time to Call: $calltime\n\n";
$mailbody.="Comments: $comments\n\n";

Shrike

Kathy,

Your form field names are in lower case (<input type="radio" name="telephone" value="Telephone" /> but your trying to get the values with sentenced-case variables ($Telephone = $HTTP_POST_VARS['Telephone']; )

Try

$telephone = $HTTP_POST_VARS['telephone'];

🙂

kathy1234

Duhh...my pasting error. Case type matches from HTML to PHP...really, it does! But it still won't work right!

Shrike

Thinking on a bit...having a different variable for each contact type is not correct, presumably the user should only pick one, and so the HTML should be:


<input type=\"radio\" name=\"prefcontact\" value=\"Telephone\" />
<input type=\"radio\" name=\"prefcontact\" value=\"Email\" />

etc...

then you would get the data back within PHP with

$prefcontact = $HTTP_POST_VARS['prefcontact']

As far as why it's not working, at the top of contact.php, directly after the "<?php" type

print_r($HTTP_POST_VARS);

and this will print out the array and show you what data the script has access to.

I take it theres no www example of your page?

kathy1234

Help me with the slashes on HTML. Should they be:

<input type=\"radio\" name=\"prefcontact\" value=\"Telephone\" /> Telephone

<input type="radio" name="prefcontact" value="Email" /> Email

Because the first one creates a text box and not radio button. Thanks for your help!

LordShryku

if you are echoing from php, you need the slashes. If it's just HTML, you don't.

// from php
<?php
echo "<input type=\"radio\" name=\"prefcontact\" value=\"Telephone\" /> Telephone";
?>

//from html
<input type="radio" name="prefcontact" value="Telephone" />Telephone

kathy1234

Thanks LordShyrku. That's what I thought. I took all the little slashes out of it and placed the

print_r($HTTP_POST_VARS);

right after
<?

at the top of my contact.php file and now it doesn't forward. It just sticks at contact.php instead of forwarding to my thankyouurl. Suggestions?

Thanks again, guys!

kathy1234

I take it theres no www example of your page?

Yeah, I'm trying to make this page work on a friend's site (not my url): here
with php file

It works in all sorts of other places, but not at this url. Thanks again for your help.

Shrike

Ok heres a few things - some of your form names are sentenced (e.g. Name instead of name). You declare $mailbody with concatenation ( .= )which throws a warning in recent versions of PHP4. In your HTML form the address fields are named mailing_addy and mailing_addy2 and the script is looking for $HTTP_POST_VARS['address'] and $HTTP_POST_VARS['address2']

Note: I submitted a copy of the HTML form taken from the website to a code file which I coped from your forum post so apologies if you've changed things in the meantime.

Here's the result of the script (with a print_r($HTTP_POST_VARS) )


Array ( [Name] => [mailingaddy] => [mailing_addy2] => [city] => [state] => AL [zip] => [email] => [phone] => [fax] => [calltime] => [comments] => [Submit] => Send ) 
Notice: Undefined index: name in c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\test.php on line 12

Notice: Undefined index: last_name in c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\test.php on line 13

Notice: Undefined index: address in c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\test.php on line 14

Notice: Undefined index: address2 in c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\test.php on line 15

Notice: Undefined index: contact in c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\test.php on line 22

Notice: Undefined variable: mailbody in c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\test.php on line 29

kathy1234

I bow to your greatness. I will get working on those error messages right away and let you know how things go! Thank you SO MUCH once again....you are the greatest!