Filling text fields

[Calahan]

Is there a standard way to fill text fields that are actually requesting data from the user?
See below

Page1

echo '<center><form action="add-engineer2.php" method="post" name="engineer">
<table>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td><b>Username:</b></td>
        <td><input name="username" type="text"></td>
      </tr>	  

	  <tr>
        <td><b>Name:</b></td>
        <td><input name="name" type="text"></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><b>Password:</b></td>
        <td><input name="password" type="password"></td>
      </tr>
	  <tr>
        <td><b>E-mail Address:</b></td>
        <td><input name="email" type="text"></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><b>Site:</b></td>
        <td><input name="site" type="text"></td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>
<p><input value="Next" type="submit" name="submit2">
</form>

Now I want to pre-fill these text fields with data when I send the user from another page like so.

mail($_POST['email'],$subject,$body,$headers) OR die("<center><p><font size='+3' color='red'><strong><u>ERROR!!</u></strong></font> 
<p>
<font size ='+2' color='red'><strong>There was a problem with the e-mail address that you supplied for " . ucwords($_POST['name']) . "</strong></font>
<p>
Click the button below to fix the problem.
<p>
<form name='form-add-engineer' method='post' action='add-engineer.php'>
<input type='hidden' name='username' value='" . $_POST['username'] . "'>
<input type='hidden' name='name' value='" . $_POST['name'] . "'>
<input type='hidden' name='password' value='" . $_POST['password'] . "'>
<input type='hidden' name='email' value='" . $_POST['email'] . "'>
<input type='hidden' name='site' value='" . $_POST['site'] . "'>
<input name='edit-engineer' type='submit' value='Previous Page'>
</form>"); 

As you can see, I've used hidden $_POSTs in the ope that it would work but as the first page isn't populated by information from a previous page (because it's the first), this solution doesn't work.

Any suggestions?

[swr]

It should work... If there is no data, the fields will be blank.

If you want to populate the fields with data from the database or the posted data (if any) then you need to code the logic for that...

if (empty($_POST['submit'])) {
    // Get data from the database or wherever...
    $data['foo'] = 'blah';
    $data['bar'] = 'blahblah';
}
else {
    $data = $_POST;
}

Then use $data['foo'] instead of $_POST['foo'].