adding a value to a hidden field with a url

gregghealy

I want to populate a hidden field, and ultimately use the hidden field data to name an uploaded file.

I am calling the upload page with a url like this:

http://mydomain.com/index.php?job=test_job.pdf

I cant get the data to populate a hidden field so I can use it in the upload to change the name. Should I be looking at a different way to do this?

Of course I left my PHP4 book at home...

gregghealy

Maybe I can clarify this a little...Im confused now.

I simply need to carry data (a file name) from a URL and populate a hidden field or some other way pass it to the upload script.

I knew I should have brought the book today!

Thanks for any help,

Roger_Ramjet

See my reply in this thread

gregghealy

Problem Solved! The problem I was having was the quotes. PHP apparently is very sensitive to quote usage...! All of the quotes in the html are single, doubler quotes are used in around the echo and string variable.

Just a simple $name with the correct use of the quotes did exactly what I need. Here is the code that works (at least on my system). Is there a way to make it behave better parsing quotes? This was making me sieze...

This link:

http://mydomain.com/page.php?name=test_job.pdf

Works with this page:

<?php

$file_name = "$name";

echo "<html>
<head>
<title>test page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method='post' action='upload.php' enctype='multipart/form-data'>
<input type='hidden' name='filename' value='$file_name'>
<input name='userfile' type='file'>
<input type='submit' value='upload'>
</body>
</html>
";
?>

Thanks for the help,

Roger_Ramjet

There are two fundamentally opposed schools of thought when it comes to php quotes: single and double.

Software engineering specifies that 70% of the Total Lifecycle Cost of software comes in after development and deployment: in the useage and maintainance part of the software lifecycle. Savings are easiest and greatest when you focus on this part: cut 10% out of the development cost and you've only saved 3% of the TLC. Save 10% of the maint cost and you've saved 7% TLC.

So, amateurs and hackers are worried about saving keystrokes (the double quoted school): software engineers are worried about making their code easy to read and maintain (the single quoted school).

EDIT: should not have written this like this
"Hackers are also worried about being big fish in a small pond. If they can write code that is difficult to understand it makes them feel important. Like Freemasons and their secret signs is how I characterise them."
Bad manners if nothing else; but I'll not remove it as that would be cowardly. Just offer my apologies if I have insulted anyone, SORRY. Probably been having a bad day cleaning up someone elses code.

Now it is up to you. But I guarentee that you will make fewer typos using single quotes. The error that you have to debug will be error of logic not syntax.

Also, the XHTML standard is for double quotes in ALL html tags, so get into the habit. Or be 'Old School' and get the wrong habits.

gregghealy

OK... I just wanted it to work.

What is the new school/non-hacker way to use double quotes inside an html echo? Or is there a better way in general to create a page than using echo?

Roger_Ramjet

No. echo is as good as it gets.

<?php
echo '<table border="0" width="100%" celspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
         <tr>
         <td align="left">'.$row['id'].'</td>
         <td align="center">'.$row['name'].'</td>
         </tr>
      </table>';

// just about does it as an example
?>

Easy you see. Should be using the HEREDOC syntax, except it never works on my current host server but the unterminated echo does exactly the same as heredoc, without the hastle of the heredoc terminator.
Someone is bound to come along and critique this savagely, but it works for me. It allows me to format my source html just as clearly as as I would were it pure html file, you know indents and all.

The main thing about the single quoted syntax is that you cannot embed $vars in the string but have to . concatenate them. This ends up preventing all sorts of sloppy typos in the long run, because you have no choice, and makes your actions far more obvious. The double quoted syntax forces you to keep on using \" which you will end up forgetting or using when you should not, which leads to endless debugging of syntax not logic.

gregghealy

My other concern was that the WYSIWYG program I use to create html pages and embed the php code into, does not give me an option to use single quotes everywhere...that wont work.

The HEREDOC syntax, in this case at least, means using a single quote to open and close the echo and calling varaibles using:

'.$vars.'

Thanks for clarifying this, I am after all in the newbie section... This works great, there must have been something else that was not working with the first code example.

Roger_Ramjet

Glad to be of help.

(I am a grumpy old man with attitude, as the tone of my post shows)

There are plenty of excellent programmers here, including some mods, who would disagrre totally with my point of view: they advocate the double quoted sysntax. And they would quite rightly object to my characterising them as hackers and crackers. And exchanges on this subject have gotten quite heated in the past. I think that my example justifies my position. Here is the double quoted alternative:


<?php
echo "<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" celspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"3\">
         <tr>
         <td align=\"left\">$row['id']</td>
         <td align=\"center\">$row['name']</td>
         </tr>
      </table>";

// just about does it as an example
?>

Judge for yourself. If someone else had written it and you had to maintain it, which would you prefer?

And I'm not even sure that you can get away with a multi-line echo with the double quotes!