my form resets rather than submit

xjlittle

Hi all,

I have built a form that works well on my development machine. However when I transferred it to the production machine rather than submitting it seems to reset itself.

Thinking maybe this had something to do with configuration I copied my php.ini to the production machine but still had the same results.

Can someone point me in the right direction to getting this fixed? My code, up to the point where I connect to the database follows:

<html><head><title>Information request form</title></head>
<body>
<?php

$windows = $_POST['windows'];
$storage = $_POST['storage'];
#the html form
$form =  "<form action=\"$PHP_SELF\" method=\"post\">";

$form.= "Fields with * are required <br /><br />";

$form.= "*First Name:&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp <input type=\"text\" name=\"first_name\" ";
$form.= "size=\"10\" value=\"$first_name\">";

$form.= "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*Last Name:&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp <input type=\"text\" name=\"last_name\" ";
$form.= "size=\"15\" value=\"$last_name\"> <br /><br />";

$form.= "*Address: <input type=\"text\" name=\"address\" ";
$form.= "size=\"50\" value=\"$address\"> <br /><br />";

$form.= "*City:&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp;&nbsp; <input type=\"text\" name=\"city\" ";
$form.= "size=\"50\" value=\"$city\">,&nbsp";

$form.= "*State: <input type=\"text\" name=\"state\" ";
$form.= "size=\"2\" value=\"$state\">&nbsp";

$form.= "*Zip: <input type=\"text\" name=\"zip\" ";
$form.= "size=\"12\" value=\"$zip\"><br /><br />";

$form.= "*Telephone: <input type=\"text\" name=\"telephone\" ";
$form.= "size=\"12\" value=\"$telephone\"><br /><br />";

$form.= "email: <input type=\"text\" name=\"email\" ";
$form.= "size=\"50\" value=\"$email\"><br /><br />";

$form.= "At least one of the following must be checked...<br /><br />";
$form.= "I would like information on window coverings: <input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"windows\" ";
$form.= "value=\"\"><br /><br />";

$form.= "I would like information on storage solutions for my closets, garage, etc: <input type=\"checkbox\" ";
$form.= "name=\"storage\" value=\"\"><br /><br />";

$form.= "<input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" value=\"submit\"> ";
$form.= "</form>";

#display the form on page load
if (!$submit) {$msg = $form;}
else
#redisplay the form if it is incomplete
if (!$first_name and !$last_name and !$address and !$city and $state and !$zip and !$telephone)
{
  $msg = "<font color=blue><b>Please fill out the required fields marked with *.</b></font><br /><br />";
  $msg.= $form;
   } else
if (!isset($_POST['windows']) && (!isset($_POST['storage'])))
{
  $msg = "<b>Please check one of the windows and/or closets boxes.</b><br /><br />";
  $msg.= $form;
   } else
#add the information to the database table
#connect to mysql
{ $conn = mysql_connect("localhost:/var/lib/mysql/mysql2.sock", "secret", "integrity")
or die ("could not connect to mysql");

You can see the live form here.

Thanks for your help.

John

laserlight

What if you use $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] instead of $PHP_SELF?

TheDefender

It almost sounds like Registe Globals is off. What are the configs of the 2 machines? OS, Web Server, etc? If the production machine is running Apache, did you restart the webserver after copying up the php.ini?

In any respect, you should configure your script to always assume Register Globals is off anyhow. It's just safer coding practice.

So, instead of:
if (!$submit)

You'd use this:
if (!$_POST['submit'])

laserlight

It almost sounds like Registe Globals is off.

It is off, you can see that action="" in the form at the URI given.

xjlittle

Hey guys thanks for your help. Unfortunately neither suggestion helped.

What if you use $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] instead of $PHP_SELF?

This generated an error:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /var/www/html/php/information_request.php on line 8

My code looked like this:

$form =  "<form action=\"$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']\" method=\"post\">";

What are the configs of the 2 machines? OS, Web Server, etc?

Development machine: Mandrake 9.2, Apache 2, php 4.3.3(using packaged rpms)

Production machine: Mandrake 10.1, Apache2 (packaged rpm), php 4.3.10 from source.

Using

if (!$_POST['submit'])

didn't help either.

Yes I restarted apache when I changed the php.ini

Whenever I look at the php.ini file on the production machine I see that Register Globals=on. However when I run the php_info() is shows them as off. Where else would it get this setting?

laserlight

This generated an error:

Then fix it.

$form = "<form action=\"{$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']}\" method=\"post\">";

xjlittle

Ok I fixed it. The syntax is still new to me for PHP and I will have to learn the proper form for register_globals=off. Most of the tutorials that I have read use it set to on.

Thanks for your help and I will learn it set to off!

Thanks,
John