question about header and validation

[sudhakararaog]

1.
i have a question about using header("Location: filename.html"); in php

with my present code i have a few echo statements followed by header("Location: filename.html"); because i have echo

statements before header("Location: filename.html"); i am getting an error that headers have already been sent. i cannot

remove the echo statements as they are doing an important task. based on this situation i can use echo followed by the html

code for the filename in filename.html if i do this the code will run into a few 100's of lines and due to this i would like

to use header("Location: filename.html");

i have tried the following code and it works =

echo " <form name='errorpage' action='error.php' method='post'> </form>

<script type='text/javascript' language='javascript'> document.errorpage.submit(); </script> ";
however if javascript is turned off this redirection will not work.

could you please suggest if there is an alternative to using echo statement first followed by
header("Location: filename.html");

2.
i am using the following php validation for forms which is not working very well

a)
$specialcharacters = '#^{([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$#';}
with this code for a name if i type "first name" with a space it is considering the space and treating as a special character

however it should validate for letters and numbers only. how can i write '/^{[a-zA-Z]+$/';} to ignore spaces

b)
$firstnamecheck = '/^{[a-zA-Z]+$/';}
with this code if i type for example "first name" as per the error is states that the string needs to contain letters. though

i typed letters because of the space it is not treating as letters. how can i rewrite this '/^{[a-zA-Z]+$/';}

please advice.

thanks.

[laserlight]

i cannot remove the echo statements as they are doing an important task.

Their task cannot be important, otherwise you would not be redirecting the page.

Simply put: if you want to send a header, structure the code such that there is no output before the header is sent. Furthermore, immediately follow the sending of a location header with a die or exit and you would not want to print anything on the page (the stuff that comes afterwards is unimportant too, once the location header is sent).

The alternative is to use output buffering, which may make sense in some cases, but certainly not where location headers are concerned.

[Horizon88]

Another alternative would be to use an HTML meta-redirect.