$_POST['Oh no! It's Gone!']

Havin_it2

Hi,

Wonder if anyone can shed light on this. I'm having trouble posting a (rather long) string. I have a form sending the variable $key, from a text field into which the contents of an RSA private key have been entered. The text is under 1000 characters, all of which are alpha, numeric or arithmetic (=+-/). There are also returns (it's copied from a textfile).

When I echo $_POST['key'] on the next page, it displays nothing.

My php.ini has post_max_size = 8M, so I don't think it's too big to send (am I wrong?)

Or are the returns or some other character mucking up the result? magic_quotes_gpc is also on, but I can't see anything that would invoke this. Anyone?

colbec

Is it just this variable, i.e. are other variables (experimental if necessary) echoed back ok?

AstroTeg

Are you calling on $POST[] from within a function? Does that functoin have access to $POST[]?

The data you're sending shouldn't be a problem. The browser will automatically URL encode it before transferring it over. If you still feel unsure, test the form out with something that doesn't have any special characters and then toss a string at it that does have some special characters and see what happens.

Depending on the system specs, 1000 characters of data may be around 2k in actual data (assuming 2 bytes per character). This amount shouldn't cause any problems either for the client browser or the web server.

superwormy

Try just doing a;

print_r ($_POST);

And see if the variable shows up...

Also, are you sure the form is set to method="post" and not "get" instead?

Are you sure the textarea has a name="" attribute?

Havin_it2

Thanks guys - this is getting well wierd now...

I stripped all other code off the page, leaving just the form (action=PHP_SELF) and the echo and print_r statements. The first time I entered the key, the echo worked. Second time, it didn't - it came up blank, including the print_r() statement. This became a repeating pattern. It's exactly the same effect whatever the string contains, so that narrows it down I guess.

I just don't get this. What can be doing this?

superwormy

post your code...

Havin_it2

OK, here goes...

<?php require_once('../Connections/connectMyShop.php'); ?>
<?php
mysql_select_db($database_connectMyShop, $connectMyShop);
$query_orders = "SELECT orderNum FROM customer ORDER BY orderNum ASC";
$orders = mysql_query($query_orders, $connectMyShop) or die(mysql_error());
$row_orders = mysql_fetch_assoc($orders);
$totalRows_orders = mysql_num_rows($orders);
?>
<?php if (isset($POST['privkey']))
{
$key = stripslashes($POST['privkey']);
$key = md5($key);
$query_key = "UPDATE myShop SET key = '".$key."'";
mysql_query($query_key, $connectMyShop) or die (mysql_error());
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body>

<p> <?php echo $key; ?></p>
<p><?php echo $POST['privkey']; ?> </p>
<p><?php print_r($POST); ?> </p>
<p>Order Number </p>
<form action="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>" method="post" name="keyinput" id="keyinput">
<p>Enter Key for Shopping orders:</p>
<p> <textarea name="privkey" cols="65" rows="15" id="privkey"></textarea>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit">
</p>
</form>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($orders);
?>

colbec

I stripped out the db code and just ran it to check on the variables issue, it echoed back the vars just fine here; did it several times and it seemed to be consistent. Maybe I missed something?

Havin_it2

colbec, I am at a loss!

I also removed ALL other code, but the once-on, once-off behaviour remains the same. As I said it does this even with a simple string of a few characters, so I guess it's not my coding that is to blame :rolleyes:

ANY other config issues that could cause this? Something to do with caching? ANYTHING?

(BTW, PHP 4.2.2 on WinXP if that means anything)😕 😕 😕 😕