Best way of doing confirmation redirect?

Teach

Hi there!

I recently posted regarding problems we're experiencing when displaying confirmation messages after a database event (say an UPDATE or INSERT), where if the visitor sits on their page and refreshes, we end up with duplicate or blank entries, or if the back button is used and they click OK to post data...

Any how, there were many responses (thank you) but I think the simple method we're going to use rather than trying to delve into session variables and comparing those (which is going to confuse me!) I have chosen to try the following...

On every confirmation message, similar when logging into these Forums, it will show the displayed message for 10 seconds, and then automatically take the user back to another page which should hopefuly eliminate 95% of our problems.

The point of my post is to ask how the best way of doing this is? Javascript, or PHP? As not every page is going to have a redirect and each redirect will take the visitor to another place, I need it to work within <body> (it's not ideal for anything to be in <head>)... what way would you guys do it?

Thanks!

halojoy

you can have PHP
echo 'message'
and then do:
<meta http-equiv="refresh">

<?php

// 10 seconds delay
echo '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10;url=somewhere/somepage.php" />';
// message
echo 'you will be redirected after 10 seconds';
// link if meta refeesh redirect is turned off in browser
echo 'to this page: <a href="somewhere/somepage.php">somewhere/somepage.php</a>';

exit(); // exit the php script

?>

NogDog

Note that the <meta> tag should be in the <head> section of the page, whereas the message text belongs in the <body> section.