[RESOLVED] submitting Forms/Linking

Magfersile

I've got a general question about forms and how they behave. I am trying to create one file that has a form on it, that when submitted, uses the code in that same file as the action. Is there a way to do this?
game.php

<html>
<body>
<b>Login</b><br />
<form action="login.php" method="post">
Name: <input type="text" name="username" />
<br />
Password: <input type="password" name="userpass" />
<input type="submit" value="Login" />
</form>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Create a Character</b><br />
<form action="createchar.php" method="post">
Name: <input type="text" name="name" />
<br />
Password: <input type="password" name="password" />
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

This is the way that I have it set up now, but what I'm wondering, is if there is a way to make it work where the code from createchar.php and login.php is instead in game.php and use the action element in the form tag to point back to game.php without causing errors such as undefined $_POST variables.

halojoy

Of course it is possible.
But question is if it is good?
To put 'it all' in same php page.

Many prefer to have separate pages, for separate actions.

For example 'login.php' / 'logout.php'
You only have to login 1 time.
Why should the phpscript include the code that handles login
when user is already logged in?

The main consideration may be:
- things that are used 1 time or few times, should be separate.
- things/functions that are used over and over, should be in main script

... or more correct
should be included in the main script.
It can still be a separate file, but included using for example:
include( 'common_functions.php' );

It is also possible to make conditional includes:
if( this and that ){
include( 'this_and_that.php' )
}

Regards

Magfersile

Thanks for the insight on that halojoy. It helped me understand a bit better. What I am trying to do is circumvent a 'security' issue that might arise later on. That issue is if a user goes to www.mydomain/game.php rather than www.mydomain/login, an error will be generated and I figured it would be simpler to just have one page that allows them to login, and then iterate through a loop for the rest of the code that will display the actual 'content' of the page. That way they still only have to login once and everything is kept on the same page and is more userfriendly. Please let me know if this is a good idea or not, and are there any other ways to ge around this issue?

yuniar

Magfersile wrote:
That issue is if a user goes to www.mydomain/game.php rather than www.mydomain/login, an error will be generated

What error will be generated?

You could put a checking there on your game.php, like this

if(!empty$_POST['submit']){ //check for submit button
  .....do all your processing here
}

That way, if user goes directly to that page, nothing is happened.

Magfersile

Thanks to everyone for posting. I've got it working now. However, I am still a bit unclear as to how to structure my scripting files in the best way. For instance, if I have a randomizer that will be used frequently, should I save it in somefile.php, and then use the include() function in my other files that need a randomizer, or should I just use the <form action='somefile.php'> tag to link to my scripts? Any more input you could give me would be great, and thanks again for posting. 🙂

yuniar

What is your randomizer do?

Generally, if you have any function that will be used frequently, it's a good practice to put it into separate file and include it as needed.

Magfersile

Sorry I haven't responded in a few days. The randomizer just returns a random value between 1 and 20 (inclusive), and I think I'm getting the hang of how to write my scripts to make them easily accessible from seperate files. Thanks halojoy and yunjar for posting. 🙂