forms flow question

nobertos

hi, i am having trouble sending a user directly to a 'success' page after they fill out a form (and error checking is passed with flying colors). how can you validate errors and post all the form data to a 'success' page all within one fell swoop?

up until now i've used this scenario:

user fills out form (form1.php). form1.php has an include call to an error checking page for that form - form1_error_checking.tmpl.php - it handles the error checking by creating an array of error messages.
if errors, dispay them at the top of form1.php, highlight the bad fields, etc
if no errors, display a 'no errors! message at the top with a form submit button saying 'continue' (the code that displays this message is in the form1_error_checking.tmpl.php file)

when the user fills out the form correctly, i display the 'no errors' message and the page contains a form with hidden variables in it (all the variables in the form) - the 'continue' submit button of this form posts all the values to a 'success' page, which usually handles any database calls, etc that need to be made.

instead of having the user click the submit button, i tried making it transparent using a javascript call after the form with the hidden fields. it would submit the form and take me to the sucess page, but none of the variables seemed to be passed along in the POST. so i could not use any of the variables in calls to the database, etc.

paulnaj

I'm a little confused ...

Do you mean this:

1) View form1.php for the first time
2) Fill out form and click submit back to same page (form1.php)
3) Perform error-checking ... if good, go to new page and display results. If no good, display the form again along with error message.

nobertos

yes, exactly....

i want to get rid of my extra step i usually use (making the user click a submit button near the top of the page if they pass error checking) in order to get to the sucess page

devinemke

this would seem to be the basic logic you want: (substitute your own blocks of code where needed)

if (!isset ($_POST['submit']))
{
			display the form
}

if (isset ($_POST['submit']))
{
			check for errors

		if (there are errors)
		{
			display the errors
			display the form
		}
		else
		{
			display the success page
		}
}

nobertos

in my case the form, error checking, and success page are each their own php file.... so i have to post all the variables to the success page (when there are no errors).

so i've been wrestling with how to post variables to the success page, since it is its own separate page. seems like i have to use a form with hidden variables and submit it somehow. i don't know of any other way to do it.

it would be easier if i kept it all in one file like your example shows (i think)....

devinemke

my general method to form processing is to write functions that handle each part of the process and then do all of the actual form flow logic on a single page. You can if you want keep the form functions on separate pages and simply include() them. Here again is a basic outline:

function form () {display the form}
function check_errors () {check the form data for errors}
function db_update () {store the form data in the database}
function send_mail () {email me a notification of the db update}

if (!isset ($_POST['submit']))
{
			form ();
}

if (isset ($_POST['submit']))
{
			check_errors ();

		if (there are errors)
		{
			displays the errors
			form ();
		}
		else
		{
			db_update ();
			send_mail ();
			echo 'You have successfully used my form!';
		}
}

paulnaj

Got to say ... devinemke' right. Can't you fix your code to make that work?

Anyway, I was just about to post this, so you might as well see it.

My way to do this is:

Here's the pseudo-code:

if(/ form_has_been_submitted /)){

// Include your error-checking code here

if(/* form_filled_out_correctly */){

    // Re-direct to new page, using header() function

} else {

    // Build error message

}

}

HTML starts here, not before ...

// Display error message, if there is one

// Form HTML Here

BUT ... this only works if you want to go to a new page after the error check (Yes).

AND ... if you use the header() function, there can't be ANY html before the header, so the form must be displayed after the above code. (If the form is filled out correctly, the page will be re-directed before the form shows ... exactly what you want.

The problem is this. If you use header(), the only way I know how to get the variables to the new page would be to build the post array in a string ...

foreach($_POST as $key=>$value){
$my_query[] = $key.'='.$value;
}

and attach it ...

header('Location: success.php?'.join('&', $my_query));

BUT ... that is now a GET string and will shown in the address bar. Does that matter?

If it does, you're back to doing like devinemke's way, or using sessions to store the variables across pages.

nobertos

thanks for the help, i think i'll do it the first way, using includes for each portion of code. i tried it by breaking up my pages differently and it is working...

now all i have to do is figure out how to get sessions to work without cookies enabled, i have enable_trans_sid on and it should automatically passing around the session id... but my session code isn't working - so i posted it separately in this forum.

then i have to figure out how to deal with this: some pages will require the user to be logged in, some won't. my current login/session code allows the user to log in and then choose to log out at a later time (or be automatically logged out by the timeout mechanism). the new code will need to prompt the user to login if they are hitting a page that requires the user to be logged in, then they will be forwarded to the page they were trying to access. after that, they can access any pages that require a login, until they log out or are timed out.

so i need to grab the filename of the page they were trying to access and after logging in, send them there. and then later on if they reach a page where a login is required, they'll just seamlessly go to the page, without another login required.