[Resolved] String comparison problem

cbj4074

I have to be doing something stupid here. Basically, I have a form a user fills out. It gets passed to the page that has code similar to what I've pasted below. What I don't understand is why the values for each item in the array $field_data are not evaluating as expected. The conditional statement is checking to see if any fields were left blank. No matter what I put into the fields before submitting the form, every value evaluates as blank. I even tried a forach loop and printed out the keys and values for each item in the array and they are definitely not blank. For example, the printed result was like:

Name=Bob
State=CA

So, I know the array contains string data (I double checked with gettype() and they are definitely string data), but when I try to compare the strings to anything, be it blank '' (two single quotes) or otherwise, the evaluations don't work as I expect.

Thanks for any help, I know I'm missing something obvious.

//requests all of the form variables from survey.php, once it's posted
//this has to be done before sending headers
$firstname = addslashes($_REQUEST['firstname']);
$lastname = addslashes($_REQUEST['lastname']);
$title = addslashes($_REQUEST['title']);
$company = addslashes($_REQUEST['company']);
$address1 = addslashes($_REQUEST['address1']);
$address2 = addslashes($_REQUEST['address2']);
$city = addslashes($_REQUEST['city']);
$state = addslashes($_REQUEST['state']);
$country = addslashes($_REQUEST['country']);
$zip = addslashes($_REQUEST['zip']);
$telephone = addslashes($_REQUEST['telephone']);
$email = addslashes($_REQUEST['email']);

//associates a key with each element of the form data so we can tell the user which (if any)
//fields were left blank on submission
$field_data = array('First Name' => $firstname, 'Last Name' => $lastname, 'Title' => $title, 'Company' =>
	$company, 'Address Line 1' => $address1, 'City' => $city, 'State' => $state, 'Country' => $country, 'Zip/Country Code' =>
	$zip, 'Telephone' => $telephone, 'Email' => $email);

$num_fields = count($field_data);

$error_list = array();
foreach ($field_data as $key=>$value)
if ($field_data[$value] == '') {
$error_list[] = 'You cannot leave the <font color="#FF0000">' . $key . '</font> field blank.';
}

if ($num_errors = (count($error_list)) == 0) {
	echo 'There are no errors!';
}

else {
//give the user the error messages
}

Erkilite

instead of $REQUEST, try $POST or $_GET

cbj4074

I tried that, but knew it wasn't the problem because the array is not empty and the values are not blank (which I knew by iterating through and printing the key/value pairs).

Let's keep it real simple.

$myvar = 'hello';
$yourvar = 'world';

$somedata = array('My Variable' => $myvar, 'Your Variable' => $yourvar);

foreach ($somedata as $key=>$value)
echo 'The key <strong>' . $key . '</strong> has the value <strong>' . $value . '</strong>.<br />';

echo '<br />';

foreach ($somedata as $key=>$value)
if ($somedata[$value] == '') {
echo 'The ' . $key . ' field evaluates as blank.<br />';
}

Gives the output:

The key My Variable has the value hello.
The key Your Variable has the value world.

The My Variable field evaluates as blank.
The Your Variable field evaluates as blank.

I don't know what the problem is. Why are values that are not blank matching the empty quotes criteria? I'm sure I'll feel stupid when someone points it out, as this kind of thing has worked just fine for me in the past (but I used for loops instead of foreach, which make a lot more sense ro me in this case).

Thanks!

superwormy

This last bit:

foreach ($somedata as $key=>$value)
if ($somedata[$value] == '') {
echo 'The ' . $key . ' field evaluates as blank.<br />';
}

You should be using:

$somedata[$key] and NOT $somedata[$value]

cbj4074

You are absolutely right, Keith! You have my utmost adoration and respect -- that has been busting my prick for about 4 hours.

I have no idea why that works and not what I tried before. Would you be so good as to give just a quick explanation of why that works and not the way I tried before? Is it because the data actually has to be referenced by the key, and cannot be referenced by the value itself?

Thanks!!!

superwormy

Thing about what youre' doing. When you use a foreach($array as $key => $value) loop like that, you're taking the key to each elemnt and putting it in the $key var, and the value in the $value var.

So for your loop, the first time it loops:

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

// for the first loop:
// $key equals 'My Variable'
// $value equals 'hello'

// for the second loop:
// $key = 'Your Variable'
// $value equals 'World'

Then you tried to do this:
if ($somedata[$value] == '')

Which is equivalent to...
if ($somedata['hello'] == '')

Right? Make sense? And, obviously, that's not what you meant to do. YOu meant to do:
if ($somedata['My Variable'] == '')

You could have also just done this:

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

if ($value == '') { // do something }

}