I'm an idiot..

Razorblade

Right, everyone has to start somewhere, please don't laugh at me..

<form action="message.php" method="post"> 
Enter your name: <input type="text" name="name" size="30"><br>
Enter your age: <input type="text" name="age" size="3"><br>
Enter the date you think you will die on: <input type="text" name="death" size="3"><br> 
<input type="submit" value="Send"> </form>

<?php 
// retrieve form data 
$input = $_POST['name'];
$inputi = $_POST['age'];
$inputii = $_POST['death'];
// use it 
echo "Great, so your name is <i>$input</i>";. You are <i>$inputi</i>"; years old, and oh dear, you expect to die at the age of <i>$inputii</i>"; that is very bad news!";
?>

What the hell am I doing wrong? This is my first attempt at PHP and if I can't do this right, I don't know what to do, can anyone explain what's wrong?

planetsim

echo "Great, so your name is <i>".$input."</i>. You are <i>".$inputi."</i> years old, and oh dear, you expect to die at the age of <i>".$inputii."</i> that is very bad news!";

Wouldnt that work better?

Razorblade

As stated ;-) I am an idiot and very new to this, thank you very very much.

victorb17

Just curious, I use the {} instead of the . is this better, worse, matter of preference? thanks!

Rodney_H_

Everyone starts somewhere. I just have a quick tip for you. Your variable names could be created to be more identifiable and easier to use and find in your scripts. For example, instead of :

// retrieve form data
$input = $POST['name'];
$inputi = $POST['age'];
$inputii = $_POST['death'];

try this:

// retrieve form data
$name = $POST['name'];
$age = $POST['age'];
$death = $_POST['death'];

And then you could try this:

<?php
echo "Great, so your name is <i>$name</i>. You are <i>$age</i> years old, and oh dear, you expect to die at the age of <i>$death</i> that is very bad news!";

apenster

why don't you use POST... variable directly? Less memory usage. Or am I being an idiot now?

Rodney_H_

apenster wrote:
why don't you use POST... variable directly? Less memory usage. Or am I being an idiot now?

You most certainly are NOT an idiot. In this case you are correct, no biggie. But in the future, when the script gets more involved and the information from the from needs to be processed, strip tags, html special characters, trim, etc..., it is a good habbit to be in to do it as I have suggested, no?? 😃

LoganK

Razorblade, did you ever program in QBASIC? 😃

apenster

LoganK wrote:
Razorblade, did you ever program in QBASIC? 😃

no, he's an idiot 😃 😃

LoganK

Maybe so...I just saw his use of semicolons to concatenate strings, and that's what we did back in QBASIC.

But if he's an idiot, I understand.

Does he have anything to say on this matter? 😃

Rodney_H_

He is not going to answer because he had his script working yesterday and is on to bigger and better things!

;-)

LoganK

I guess so...although he still should "Mark Thread Resolved"!!! 😃

Rodney_H_

agreed