validating user input in php and refreshing a page with already typed fields?

alanita

In my error checking code, when user leave empty field and submit a page, the page is refreshed with error message, but all other fields are losing their typed text since data is not inserted into db yet.

I possibly can sent inserted fields info with line
header( "location:useraccount.php?a=Create%20Account&error=".$error . $_POST[field]);
But, there are 10 fields, and header “location: line would be too long. Is there another way to do it in php?

Is there better solution, maybe using java script validate ()? Can you give an example, please?

I have two files:

useraccount.php:

transact-user.php:

if (empty($_POST['login_name'])) {
$error .= "Please+enter+Login+name%21%0D%0A";
}
if ( empty($error) ){
execute code;
}else{
header( "location:useraccount.php?a=Create%20Account&error=".$error);
break;
}

Thank you,

TheDefender

Post the form to itself instead of a separate page...

Then. for a form field, check to see if the value exists... and if it does, echo it as the field's value. If not, then the field would be blank...

alanita

If I post to same form then I can't process user input (in case of correct input) which is written on separate page.

The reason why it's written on separate page is because that page (transact -user.php) process several cases according to action (like login, logout, create new, modify).

Is there a solution for validating user input with having sepate pages for user input and code processing?

thank you,

TheDefender

Do it all on the same page... Basically, it's like this...

Display the form.

If the form is submitted and one or more fields don't validate, redisplay the form with the errors, and fields filled in.

If the form is submitted and all validation passes, process the fields.

Otherwise, use JavaScript to validate the inputs.

alanita

If I write all the code on the same page I'll have thousands of line of the code on one page.
The way I have it now, I have several pages- forms for interacting with user (like useraccount.php or login.php) and one page with forms processing logic (like transact-user.php).

Could you please give me an example of javascript input validation?
There are two files:

useraccount.php

and transact-user.php

if (isset($_POST['login_name']))
{
inser into db;
}

As I understood for javascript validation, since it's done on the client side, I need to write java script in page useraccount.php in <head> part. I should check if user typed login_name and then submit form to transact-user.php.

I don't know how to write javascript correctly. Could you please give an example?
Thank you,