Unexpected 'comma' parse errors

patwa

Hello all,

I've been trying to code this e-mail submit page for a questionaire. The values from the questionaire are passed to the script, there is some error handling that is carried out, and the e-mail is then sent.

However, there appears to be a problem with the commas in the seperation of variables and of array values. But I am unable to fix this as the syntax (the mail() function itself is an example of this) matches exactly what is in the main PHP manual.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>HCI Questionaire - Submit Answers</title>
</head>

<?php {
if ($_POST['age'] == "0") {
print("Please select your current age group from the list in Question 1"); }
else if ($_POST['currentlyown'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 2"); }
else if ($_POST['purchasefrom'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 3"); }
else if ($_POST['futureupgrade'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 4"); }
else if ($_POST['upgradewhere'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 5"); }
else if ($_POST['onlinewhy'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 6"); }
// else if ($_POST['firstphone'] == "0") {
// print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 7"); }
// else if ($_POST]'firstphonewhere'] == "0") {
// print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 8"); }
// else if ($_POST['firstphonewhy'] == "0") {
// print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 9"); }
else if ($_POST['factor1'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 11"); }
else if ($_POST['factor2'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 12"); }
else if ($_POST['factor3'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 13"); }
else if ($_POST['revisit'] == "0") {
print("Please select an answer from the list in Question 14"); 
echo "<a href=\"javascript:history.back();\">Please go back and fill out the missing fields if any are listed above</a>"; }
else {
echo "<p>Thank you.  Your answers have been submitted successfully.  Thank you for your assistance.  I grately appreciate the 

time you have taken to help me, and once again wish to assure you that all details submitted will be kept strictly 

confidential.<p>"; }
?>

<?php
$to = "patwanet@gmail.com"; $subject = "HCI Questionaire Response";  $headers .= "From: HCI Questionaire - PatwaNet 

<hci@patwanet.co.uk>\r\n";  $headers .= "Return-Path: hci@patwanet.co.uk\r\n";  $headers .= "Reply-To: 

hci@patwanet.co.uk\r\n";  $message = "Response to HCI Questionaire for CS2506\n";  $message .= "Q1: " . $_POST['age'] . "\n"; 

 $message .= "Q2: " . $_POST['currentlyown'] . "\n";  $message .= "Q3: " . $_POST['purchasefrom'] . "\n";  $message .= "Q4: " 

. $_POST['futureupgrade'] . "\n";  $message .= "Q5: " . $_POST['upgradewhere'] . "\n";  

$message .= "Q6: " . $_POST['purchasefrom'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q7: " . $_POST['firstphone'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q8: " . $_POST['firstphonewhere'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q9: " . $_POST['firstphonewhy'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q10: " . $_POST['clear'], $_POST['space'], $_POST['accessibility'], $_POST['context'], $_POST['technical'], 

$_POST['sitehelp'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q11: " . $_POST['factor1'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q12: " . $_POST['factor2'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q13: " . $_POST['factor3'] . "\n";
$message .= "Q14: " . $_POST['revisit'] . "\n";

  if (mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)) {  echo "<p>Answers have been submitted via e-mail!  If you have any further 

questions you may contact me <a href="mailto:patwanet@gmail.com">Via E-mail</a>";  } else {  echo "<p>E-mail could not be 

sent";  } } ?>

</body>
</html>

I would be grateful for anyone that can help me. Sorry but the line numbers are slightly confused as I'm using two programs to check this, and Dreamweaver counts lines differently than notepad. Howevers, the errors seem to be around lines 46/47 and line 52 to start with.

Thanks.

Hussein.

ChrisBoden

$message .= "Q10: " . $_POST['clear'], $_POST['space'], $_POST['accessibility'], $_POST['context'], $_POST['technical'], $_POST['sitehelp'] . "\n";

The above is a syntax error - the commas should not be present. Were you trying to concatenate them and just hit the wrong key?

$message .= "Q10: " . $_POST['clear']  . $_POST['space'] . $_POST['accessibility'] . $_POST['context'] . $_POST['technical'] . $_POST['sitehelp'] . "\n";

After fixing that, I got an error at

echo "<p>Answers have been submitted via e-mail!  If you have any further questions you may contact me <a href="mailto:patwanet@gmail.com">Via E-mail</a>";

You needed to escape the quotes in the href attribute.

echo "<p>Answers have been submitted via e-mail!  If you have any further questions you may contact me <a href=\"mailto:patwanet@gmail.com\">Via E-mail</a>";

Everything seemed to work fine for me after that.

patwa

Wow. Thank you so much for getting back to me. Our of interest, do you use your own server on your computer for script testing or do you upload to a webserver? I'd like to have a way to test my scripts without having to upload to the website every few minutes, but was wondering if there's a way to do it without going all out and installing a server on my desktop which is my usual work/play machine.

Re: the script, I was wondering if there is a way to distinguish the different values taken for the Q10 clause:

$message .= "Q10: " . $_POST['clear'] . $_POST['space'] . $_POST['accessibility'] . $_POST['context'] . $_POST['technical'] . 

 $_POST['sitehelp'] . "\n";

At the moment the e-mail that is generated just has an 'on' with no indication of which one is actually on. In the form, Q10 includes a set of checkboxes, and I'd like to be able to know which one is ticked and which aren't. Do checkboxes take 'selected' and 'unslected' or 'on and 'off' or even '0' and '1' as options?

Also, the mail portion of the script seems to be running even if errors are present. To test this, if you visit

http://www.patwanet.co.uk/questionaire.php

and leave any of the first 7 questions blank, it should come up with an error, which it does, but it also says that answers have been submitted! But I'm not sure how to seperate the two parts of the script.

I'm sorry that this is rather a lot, but it just seemed more prudent rather than starting four different threads on the matter.

Thanks again.

Hussein.

P.S: The link to the questionaire is just so you can see how it works. I don't expect anyone to actually participate, well not unless you want to. Just to be clear I wasn't trying to indirectly market my questionaire.

ChrisBoden

<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="clear labelling">  Clear labelling of links and buttons
<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="ample space">  Ample space between text, images and other elements (no overcrowding)
<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="accessibility">  Site is accessible to those with disabilities
<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="error messages">  Error messages are well explained
<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="things explained well">  Complicated words and expressions are well explained
<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="technical explanations">  Technical words are well explained
<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="importantdesign[]" value="site help">  

Site features are explained and help is easily accessible

Something like this should help you. Then you can do something like this:

$message .= "Q10: ";
foreach ($_POST['importantdesign'] as $important)
	$message .= $important. ", ";
$message .= "\n";

My example is a little bit nasty, but you get the picture.

Our of interest, do you use your own server on your computer for script testing or do you upload to a webserver?

Both. It depends on what I need. If I'm trying to diagnose something as simple as a parse error, I'll use my own server (or just use Zend Studio's built in execution), but if I need a more deployment-like environment, I'll upload it to my webserver.

Also, the mail portion of the script seems to be running even if errors are present. To test this, if you visit

Instead of printing the "you must ...", assign it to a variable that has a blank (or some false) value to begin with. Then do something like:

if($error_message) {
     // output the error message and do anything else that needs to be done
} else {
     // mail the answers and output confirmation
}

There's a load of ways you can do that, but thats probably the simplest.

patwa

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense to me, I can follow your example no problem, and thanks also for the tips.

Hussein.

Weedpacket

Incidentally, for syntax-checking (and some simple testing) PHP alone is all that's necessary. To syntax check a file, it's

:>  php -l filename.php

patwa

Cheers will keep that in mind.

Hussein.