Help with Processing a Large Form

[WarGod]

I am an extreme newbie, but trying to learn and would appreciate any help.

I have created one of several HTML forms that are fairly large, well over 50 fields each that are processed by a seperate PHP page. Each form has sections, such as Requester, Employee, Hardware etc... Each section has the form fields to be filled in.

I would like to parse the form data and place it all into a variable for later reference. I have created form field names that are not friendly to the recipient, but easy for me to code with.

For example, I know that this string will parse the form fields and form field values, but I don't want to print/echo them, I would like to put the fields and data into a seperate variable.

for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($form_fields); $i++) {
$thisField = $form_fields[$i];
$thisValue = $HTTP_POST_VARS[$thisField];
print $thisField ." = ". $thisValue;
}

Can anyone help me with this? I am kind of buggin out because I can figure out how to get this working. If I can get this working, I can throw away the gigantic include file I created that has a variable assigned to a form field. I would also be able to use the same idea when processing check boxes, of which all need to be seperated out by section.

This URL shows my current code so you can see what I am looking at:

SAMPLE HTML:
http://hashphp.org/pastebin.php?pid=2999

SAMPLE PHP:
http://hashphp.org/pastebin?pid=2997

Thank you...ahead of time.

[kkobashi]

When you have that many items located in a form, it is best to use an array instead of separate variables.

I like to think of think of this as "packaging" the data into an easy to read data type. Use an array instead of separate variables for every item.

Ask yourself. What is easier to manage? ONE variable or HUNDREDS?

Here's an example. Let's say you create a form that is part of the installation of your application. In the installation program, there is a form that prompts the administrator for pieces of info for setup:

$gSetup["Admin"]["First"] = "Joe";
$gSetup["Admin"]["Last"] = "Smith";
$gSetup["Contact"]["Email"] = "[e-mail]";
$gSetup["Contact"]["Phone"] = "[phone]";
$gSetup["Address"]["City"] = "San Jose";
$gSetup["Address"]["State"] = "California";
$gInfo["Address"]["Zipcode"] = "12345";

Here, $gSetup is a multidimensional array that takes string keys as its indices. You can clearly see how the data is catagorized and packaged. The category is the first index (like Admin, Contact, Addres) and the property of each category is in the second index (First, Last, Email City, etc.).

You can appreciate the above if you have worked on large coding projects on a team of engineers where every engineer writes code differently. By enforcing a coding style and set of rules, you make it easier on others, as well as yourself.

Let's say, this information is to be used throughout a large project, say of 1000 PHP files and some 100,000 lines of PHP code. Unless you are very disciplined about how you name your hundred of seperate variables and have a keen memory of their purpose by looking at the name of the variable only, you are setting yourself up for a lot of error prone work.

Doing this:

$first = "Joe";
$last = "Smith";
$email = "[e-mail]";
$phone = "[phone]";
.
.
(hundreds of other variables)

is not a smart thing to do.

The problem is that in a large project of many files and many lines of code, knowing WHERE each of these hundreds of variables are CREATED, SET, CLEARED, DELETED is like finding a needle in a haystack.

The benefits of packaging your data results in code that reads easier semantically, has less chance of name collision, and offers faster debugging.
You maintain the relationship between data items. It gives you a clue of where the data came from (its the setup code, it originated from the setup form, etc.).

[WarGod]

kkobashi,
Thanks for the quick reply. Please forgive my newbieness, I think I understand what you are saying and it sounds like a great idea, but I am not sure how to implement what you suggest.

For instance, you suggest that I should create a multidimentional array. Using your example here;
$gSetup["Admin"]["First"] = "Joe";
$gSetup["Admin"]["Last"] = "Smith";
$gSetup["Contact"]["Email"] = "[e-mail]";
$gSetup["Contact"]["Phone"] = "[phone]";
$gSetup["Address"]["City"] = "San Jose";
$gSetup["Address"]["State"] = "California";
$gInfo["Address"]["Zipcode"] = "12345";

but how does $gSetup, Admin and First relate to the form itself, meaning where would gSetup, Admin and First be used in the HTML form and how would I use this to seperate them by section? As you can see from my HTML and PHP code, I have a section for Requestor and Section for the Employee, along with many others (i.e. Hardware, Network Access etc...).

To better understand what you are telling my I would like to use a section of the form I have;

Requestor:
<input type="text" name="r_rFname" maxlength="30">

and another section;

Employee:
<input type="text" name="r_eFname" maxlength="30">

Where do I place the items, gSetup, Admin and First within the HTML so that I can use the multidimensional array?

I think that what you are suggesting makes more sense, but as I said, I am really not sure how to do what you are suggesting.

Thanks

[kkobashi]

Let's take an example. What you want to do is create two files. One file will be the presentation/view and the other will handle the process/logic.

This example will put up a form with two categories in it:

1) Person (first, last)
2) Address (city, zip)

a) Create a html file that contains the form in it. Call it, say, formSetup.html
Pay attention to the names of each HTML element. Also note that the method of the form is a POST and the action field is pointing at the processSetup.php file.

<form name="formSetup" method="post" action="processSetup.php">
<table width="294" border="0">
<tr>
<td>First name </td>
<td><input name="txtFirstname" type="text" id="txtFirstname"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Last name </td>
<td><input name="txtLastname" type="text" id="txtLastname"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>City</td>
<td><input name="txtCity" type="text" id="txtCity"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Zip</td>
<td><input name="txtZip" type="text" id="txtZip"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit"></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

b) Create a PHP file that will handle all the logic processing. Call it, say, processSetup.php

<?php

// Make sure this is a POST. If not, then simply return.
// This case could exist if someone tried to access this file incorrectly

if (!isset($_POST["submit"]))
{
echo "You arrived here in error";
return;
}

// assign to the array

$gSetup["Person"]["Firstname"] = $POST["txtFirstname"];
$gSetup["Person"]["Lastname"] = $POST["txtLastname"];
$gSetup["Address"]["City"] = $POST["txtCity"];
$gSetup["Address"]["Zip"] = $POST["txtZip"];

// Make sure to validate your data
// (i.e. check to make sure valid data exists, not empty, no more than so many characters, contains numbers only, etc.)

if (empty($gSetup["Person"]["Firstname"])
{
echo "Empty first name";
return;
}
if (strlen($gSetup["Person"]["Firstname"] > 10)
{
echo "Firstname entered is too long";
return;
}

.
.
Handle all other html field validation
.
.

// Now that you have the data, do something with it. Like put it in a database, or calculations, etc.

if (strcmp($gSetup["Address"]["Zip"], "90210"))
{
echo "Hey, you live in Beverly Hills";
}

etc....

?>