Sticky Form to Mail Help

[autopdr]

Please can anyone recommend a good tutorial source for building a sticky web form for php5?

I specifically need the form to process itself, validate some input, show an error message adjacent to the relevant input field then send the input as a formatted HTML email.

I have searched high and low and found only old tutorials, sticky tutorials that don't cover validation errors and various half-helpful tips etc. My main problem as a relative newcomer to php is glueing all the right bits together.

My approach is:

If the form was submitted do the following:
Check for invalid/spam input
Set local variables
Read the Posted input
Validate the input that needs validating
Show errors where errors exist
Build the message
Define email headers
Send the email
Show Thanks message
Else
Print the HTML form

Is this sound? All or any help will be gratefully received.

[NogDog]

You could refine that a bit to something like:

Do any initial common processing (e.g.: session_start(), user authentication)
$errors = array();
IF form data received
   Validate form, save errors in $errors array
   IF count($errors) = 0
      process form input, save any errors in $errors
      IF count($errors) = 0
         Redirect to thanks page
         exit;
      ENDIF
   ENDIF
ENDIF
IF count($errors) > 0
   Output errors
ENDIF
Display form
In each field:
   value="<?php if(isset($_POST['fieldname'])) { 
      echo htmlentities($_POST['fieldname'], ENT_QUOTES); } ?>"