[RESOLVED] if statement in onclick event

[matthewst]

It always says "nothing in text box"

<input type="text" class="formSmallTextbox" name="a_number" size="4" value="<?="$a_number"?>">

<input type="submit" name="submit" class="formTextbox" value="Submit" onClick="<?php
	if ($a_number >= '1'){
	echo "return confirm('something in text box')\">";}				else{
	echo "return confirm('nothing in text box')\">";}
	?>

[matthewst]

It just occurred to me that when the page loads the text box a_number is always empty thats why it echos "nothing in text box". How do I get php to recognize that something was put in the text box after the page was loaded?

[matthewst]

thanks raffels (sitepoint)

<input type="text" class="formSmallTextbox" name="a_number" size="4" value="">

<input type="submit" name="submit" class="formTextbox" value="Submit" onClick="if (document.getElementsByName('a_number')[0].value == '') return confirm('nothing in text box'); else return confirm('something in textbox');">

[NogDog]

It is not entirely clear to me what the relationship is between the PHP variables and the form elements in question; but remember that PHP is running on the server, while onclick events are running on the client (browser). By the time your onclick event is triggered, PHP processing has long been done ("long" in computer processor time), so PHP will have no "knowledge" of what the user has entered in any fields until the form is actually submitted back to a PHP script on the server.