Please help me -- what a 2 day session

[LiamBailey]

Two days ago I posted with:

The second page of my site is a html form where users pick a size small medium or large

radion buttons

<input type="radio" name="verse_size" value="small">
<input type="radio" name="verse_size" value="medium">

Then they come onto another form to input information, and then that information is mailed to me on the action page, but I also want the action page to display a different Paypal button decided by the size they picked on the first form.

At first I thought sending $verse_size through with the second form as a hidden value owuld work and it did,

But my action page also sends users back to the second form if required fields are left blank, when I tested it, after I was sent back to the form, when I filled in all the fields my action page displayed no Paypal button, obviously because the hidden input $verse_size had no value.

How can I have my value for $verse_size stored. Someone suggested sessions. And directed me to PHP.net the session handling page.

I've been jumping from those pages back to my code, uploading my pages everytim I tried a different way but nothing works, I'm going crazy.

Can someone please tell me how to use sessions for my purpose.

The best i have managed is managing to get it to remember the value when I am sent back to the form, but only ever small,

I put

<? session_start() ?> atop my first html form

And on the second I put $_session['size'] = $verse_size

Then I put what i would have as a hidden input as a text input so I could see if it was working:

<? if ($session['size'] = "small") { ?>
<input type="text" name="verse_size" value="small">
<? } elseif ($session['size'] = "medium") { ?>
<input type="text" name="verse_size" value="medium">

and so on, I have even tried echoing $_session['size']
inside the value quotation marks.

For the first few hours I was using $_session['verse_size']
and then I read somewhere that only alphanumeric characters work so I started using['size'] instead.

Anyone who can point me in the right direction here will be able to feel my appreciation through their computer.

[NogDog]

The session array name is $SESSION, not $session.

The session_start() command must appear in every PHP file in which you want to access the $_SESSION array, and it must come before any such accesses and before any output is sent to the browser.

An underscore is OK for associative array indexes.

You should really use "<?php" rather than "<?", to ensure compatibility on all hosts (and to avoid confusion with "<?xml" tags).

[LiamBailey]

I love you Nog dog, works like I charm.

[bradgrafelman]

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.