PHP Form Rejection Code

The42

There's probably guidance out there on how to do this already, but I wasn't sure quite what to search for... I made a PHP form, 3 pages long, each page collects data using HTML POST and it is saved to the session by the next page. I recently wrote some additional code to send the user back if all the data is not filled in, but I don't know how to make sure the answers they have already provided are retained. Advice?

toplay

I don't understand what you mean exactly by "retained"? You said you're using sessions, so the data is retained already. If you want to permanently save the info, you have to write it to a flat file or database.

Are you talking about perhaps displaying the data that's saved in sessions to show in the HTML form if they go back? Well, if that's the case then you just take the data from the session variable and put it in the "value=" part of the HTML field.

... name='first_name' value="<?PHP echo $_SESSION['first_name']; ?>" ....

hth.

The42

oops didn't read whole post. thanks

The42

Two other questions:

I filled in a "value" property with the php code in your earlier post and the appropriate field name, but it filled in the field with "<br />" when there was no session data for the field....
How do I pull that off where I have a "select" thing... a drop down menu, for state of residence? How do I make sure it adds "selected" to the proper <option> tag?

topsub

first question:::

Without seeing the code i dont' know why its doing that but a way to get around it is to write an if statement saying if there is value in ur session then post it, if not dont' do anything

<?
 if($_SESSION['first_name'] =='')
  echo'';
else
echo $_SESSION['first_name'];
 ?>

Second question:::

I see more and more places do the dropdown menus this way:

Write an if statement that will check the SESSION if there is any data. If there is then have that display as the first item instead of the "Choose One"

<? 

if($_SESSION['state'] == '')
echo'<option value="" selected>Choose One</option>
       <option value="">---------------</option>';
else
echo'<option value="'.$_SESSION['state'].'" selected>'.$_SESSION['state'].'</option>
       <option value=''>---------------</option>';
?>

if you can follow that. Hope that is what you were talking about