Newbie questions

[rockofaith]

Sorry if this is really basic...

1) I wanted to know, when making a form in php, how do I align the text boxes up with eachother so that they're not all disorganized being a space away from the label next to it.

2) When I do the confirmation page for said form...how do I write an if statement saying if there is no problems..like if(!problems) then go to confirmation page where I would display the results? But if there are problems..."else" display the problems on the form page without going to the confirmation page?

Thanks much!

[bradgrafelman]

rockofaith wrote:

1) I wanted to know, when making a form in php, how do I align the text boxes up with eachother so that they're not all disorganized being a space away from the label next to it.

Well, this isn't a PHP question but rather an HTML/CSS/design question, but... put the form in a table with two cells - the left cell contains the "label", the cell on the right would contain the text boxes.

rockofaith wrote:

2) When I do the confirmation page for said form...how do I write an if statement saying if there is no problems..like if(!problems) then go to confirmation page where I would display the results? But if there are problems..."else" display the problems on the form page without going to the confirmation page?

Well... put your form in a function, then do something like this:

function displayForm($errors=NULL) {
     echo $errors . "\n" . '<table width="500">
     <form method="post" action="myscript">
      ....
      <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send Form" />
      </form>';
}

if(!isset($_POST['submit']))
     displayForm();
else {
     $errors = '';

 if(strlen($_POST['name']) < 5)
      $errors .= 'Name must be at least 5 characters!<br />';
 if(empty($_POST['nickname']))
      $errors .= 'Nickname can not be empty!<br />';
 // etc
}

[rockofaith]

Thanks for those tips but that's not really what I was asking for.

I know how to make a form in html aligned just fine...but when I'm making a form in php with the

print 'Username: <input type="text" name="username" size="20" value="' . $_POST['username'] . '" /><br />';

...type of code, I don't know how to align the boxes that are printed to the right of the label.

For the second part...I know how to show the errors when things aren't input correctly, but I want to know how to jump to another page when there are no problems, but if there are problems to stay on the same page and execute the printing of the problem areas.

Does that make any more sense?

[bradgrafelman]

rockofaith wrote:

Does that make any more sense?

Erm, not really. If you know how to align form elements in HTML just fine, as you said, I don't get why doing it in PHP is any different - it's still just HTML... so I still suggest using a table.

For error-checking, you'd simply need to check if any errors were detected (maybe have a $errors variable default to FALSE, and if you catch any error change it to TRUE - this way you can have an IF statement to check the state of this variable for error detection) and, if so, stay on the current page and echo out an error message. If not, use [man]header/man to redirect them.

If you don't understand what I mean, show us the code you're currently using to detect errors (or a mix of code/pseudo-code) and we can try to fill in the gaps and/or alter it to make it do what you're describing.

[rockofaith]

well I don't know how to put php code in a table then, split up like that...would you be able to show me how to do that?

This is the code I'm using for the form

 // Script 8.10 - register.php (second version after Script 8.9)
// This page lets people register for the site (sort of).

// Address error handing.
ini_set ('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting (E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE);


print '<div id="leftcontent">';
	print "<h4>Register here to access Fred's Forum and to purchase CD's</h4>";


if ( isset ($_POST['submit'])) {

$problem = FALSE; // No problems so far.

// Check for each value.
if (empty ($_POST['username'])) {
	$problem = TRUE;
	print '<p>Please enter a username!</p>';
}

if (empty ($_POST['first_name'])) {
	$problem = TRUE;
	print '<p>Please enter your first name!</p>';
}

if (empty ($_POST['last_name'])) {
	$problem = TRUE;
	print '<p>Please enter your last name!</p>';
}

if (empty ($_POST['email'])) {
	$problem = TRUE;
	print '<p>Please enter your email address!</p>';
}

if (empty ($_POST['password1'])) {
	$problem = TRUE;
	print '<p>Please enter a password!</p>';
}

if ($_POST['password1'] != $_POST['password2']) {
	$problem = TRUE;
	print '<p>Your password did not match your confirmed password!</p>';
} 

if (!$problem) { // If there weren't any problems...

	print '<p><b>You are now registered!</b><br /></p>';


} else { // Forgot a field.

	print '<p>Please try again!</p>';

}

} // End of handle form IF.

// Display the form.
print '<form action="register.php" method="post"><p>';

print 'Username: <input type="text" name="username" size="20" value="' . $_POST['username'] . '" /><br />';

print 'First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name" size="20" value="' . $_POST['first_name'] . '" /><br />
Last Name: <input type="text" name="last_name" size="20" value="' . $_POST['last_name'] . '" /><br />
Email Address: <input type="text" name="email" size="20" value="' . $_POST['email'] . '" /><br />';

print 'Password: <input type="password" name="password1" size="20" /><br />
Confirm Password: <input type="password" name="password2" size="20" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Register!" /></p>
</form>';

// Complete the HTML formatting stuff.
print '</div>';

[bradgrafelman]

First of all, please edit your post and wrap all PHP code in the board's [ PHP ][ /PHP ] tags (without the spaces) as this makes it much easier on the eyes :p

For the redirection, that's easy enough - just change this line:

print '<p><b>You are now registered!</b><br /></p>';

to this:

header('Location: http://mysite.com/path/to/secondPage.php');

For the table, you'd do something like this:

echo '<form action="register.php" method="post"><table width="550" align="center">
<tr>
   <td width="15%">Username:</td>
   <td width="85%"><input type="text" name=username" size="20" value="' . @$_POST['username'] . '" /></td>
</tr>' . // etc., each field in its own row
'</table>
</form>';

[rockofaith]

you are my new best friend! :-)

[bradgrafelman]

Yay, I finally have a friend in this cold, cruel world.

Have you implemented those suggestions yet? If so, did they work out for you? Don't forget to mark the thread resolved if it is.

[rockofaith]

I'm working on it...when it works right then I'll say resolved, but you can still be my friend if it doesn't 😉

[rockofaith]

I got this error in doing the header line you gave me

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /files/home/11/jas5317/php/register.php:8) in /files/home/11/jas5317/php/register.php on line 154

This is exactly how I wrote it

if (!$problem) { // If there weren't any problems...

	header ('location: http://stu.aii.edu/~jas5317/php/thankyou4.php');

What does this mean?

Thanks

[rockofaith]

how do you do a validation that the email address entered is actually an email address?

[harmor]

rockofaith wrote:

I got this error in doing the header line you gave me

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /files/home/11/jas5317/php/register.php:8) in /files/home/11/jas5317/php/register.php on line 154

This is exactly how I wrote it

if (!$problem) { // If there weren't any problems...

	header ('location: http://stu.aii.edu/~jas5317/php/thankyou4.php');

What does this mean?

Thanks

It means that your outputting text to the screen before you're using the "header" method.

Take this code

print '<div id="leftcontent">';
    print "<h4>Register here to access Fred's Forum and to purchase CD's</h4>"; 

place it under

} // End of handle form IF. 

Since you'll get the same error I suggest converting the output text into a variable.

Here is the code rewritten

// Script 8.10 - register.php (second version after Script 8.9)
// This page lets people register for the site (sort of).

// Address error handing.
ini_set ('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting (E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE);


if ( isset ($_POST['submit'])) {

$problem = FALSE; // No problems so far.

// Check for each value.
if (empty($_POST['username'])) {
    $problem = TRUE;
    $error = '<p>Please enter a username!</p>';
}

if (empty($_POST['first_name'])) {
    $problem = TRUE;
    $error = '<p>Please enter your first name!</p>';
}

if (empty($_POST['last_name'])) {
    $problem = TRUE;
    $error = '<p>Please enter your last name!</p>';
}

if (empty($_POST['email'])) {
    $problem = TRUE;
    $error = '<p>Please enter your email address!</p>';
}

if (empty($_POST['password1'])) {
    $problem = TRUE;
    $error = '<p>Please enter a password!</p>';
}

if ($_POST['password1'] != $_POST['password2']) {
    $problem = TRUE;
    $error = '<p>Your password did not match your confirmed password!</p>';
}

if (!$problem) { // If there weren't any problems...

    header ('location: http://stu.aii.edu/~jas5317/php/thankyou4.php'); 


} else { // Forgot a field.

    print '<p>$error</p>';   
}

} // End of handle form IF.

print '<div id="leftcontent">';
    print "<h4>Register here to access Fred's Forum and to purchase CD's</h4>";

// Display the form.
print '<form action="register.php" method="post"><p>';

print 'Username: <input type="text" name="username" size="20" value="' . $_POST['username'] . '" /><br />';

print 'First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name" size="20" value="' . $_POST['first_name'] . '" /><br />
Last Name: <input type="text" name="last_name" size="20" value="' . $_POST['last_name'] . '" /><br />
Email Address: <input type="text" name="email" size="20" value="' . $_POST['email'] . '" /><br />';

print 'Password: <input type="password" name="password1" size="20" /><br />
Confirm Password: <input type="password" name="password2" size="20" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Register!" /></p>
</form>';

// Complete the HTML formatting stuff.
print '</div>'; 

[rockofaith]

I copied and pasted what you wrote and get this error now

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /files/home/11/jas5317/php/register.php:8) in /files/home/11/jas5317/php/register.php on line 150

[harmor]

Are you adding anything extra? I've tested the code and I don't get any errors except for
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_PRINT in /files/home/11/jas5317/php/thankyou4.php on line 117

But that's the file it redirects to, not register.php. So we don't have to worry about that error right now.

[rockofaith]

the php code is surrounded by html and javascript for the template, but I wouldn't think that would be causing the problem...I dunno though.

[rockofaith]

How is this code going to post the variables to the other confirmation page?

Doesn't there have to be something written saying to post to the thankyou4.php page? So when I write this code..

$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];
$firstname = $_POST['firstname'];
$lastname = $_POST['lastname'];
$email = $_POST['email'];

print "$name,<br/>";
	print "<br/>";
print "Thank you for your registering.<br/>"; 
print "<br/>";
print "Please make a note of your username <b>$username</b> and your password <b>$password</b>. You will use these to login for entering comments in the forum, to add an entry to the guestbook, and when you're ready to purchase a CD."
	print "<br/>";

...it would makes sense?

[rockofaith]

no further replies?

[bradgrafelman]

rockofaith wrote:

the php code is surrounded by html and javascript for the template, but I wouldn't think that would be causing the problem

Oh? Have you not read the manual on the [man]header/man function? Here's an excerpt taken directly from the manual:

Remember that header() must be called before any actual output is sent, either by normal HTML tags, blank lines in a file, or from PHP

rockofaith wrote:

How is this code going to post the variables to the other confirmation page?

It can't POST data to the other page. Unless you're using cURL, you can't POST data. As I see it, you have three easy options you have:

1. Pass the variables to the second page via the URL. Don't forget to encode the data.

2. Store the variables in a session.

3. Why redirect to a different page? Why not just use [man]include/man to include the confirmation page when a form has been successfully submitted?

[TheDefender]

Oops, disregard... Didn't realize bradgrafelman was still helping out, and I walked away from my PC...