Can't display session variables in form.

[spookztar]

Hi guys,

I have a small, but annoying prob. Hope you can help. I validate data entered into a form, and I'm trying to echo out the form with the offending data parked in the "value" attribute if the validation fails, but they don't show:

The code:

if (isset($_POST['prod_type_button']))
   {
       $_SESSION['prod_type'] = (isset($_POST['product_type']) AND ctype_alpha($_POST['product_type'])) ? strip_tags($_POST['product_type']) : FALSE;
       $_SESSION['cat_assign'] = (isset($_POST['category_assign'])) ? strip_tags(mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['category_assign'])) : FALSE;
       $_SESSION['productname'] = (isset($_POST['productname'])) ? strip_tags(mysql_real_escape_string(trim($_POST['productname']))) : FALSE;
       $_SESSION['nr_of_options'] = (isset($_POST['nr_of_options']) AND ctype_digit($_POST['nr_of_options']) AND $_POST['nr_of_options'] < 21) ? $_POST['nr_of_options'] : 0;
       $_SESSION['graphics'] = (isset($_POST['picornot']) AND ctype_alpha($_POST['picornot'])) ? $_POST['picornot'] : "off";
       $_SESSION['clean_desc'] = (isset($_POST['description'])) ? mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags(trim($_POST['description']))) : FALSE;
   //
   // We first check if an invalid product type, category and/or name is set:
   //
if ($_SESSION['prod_type'] === 'Pick product type' OR $_SESSION['cat_assign'] === 'Pick a category' OR $_SESSION['productname'] == FALSE OR !in_array($_SESSION['cat_assign'], $_SESSION['catarray'])) 
         {
         echo "<div class='centertext'><h2 class='hlook1'>PRODUCT AND CATEGORY HANDLING</h2></div><br />
               <span class='warning'>Please select a valid product type, product category and/or assign a productname.</span>
               <form method='post' action='/formprocessor'>
                   <fieldset>
                    <legend>SELECT PRODUCT DETAILS:</legend>
                      <select name='product_type'>
                      <option>Pick product type</option>
                      <option>Physical</option>
                      <option>Downloadable</option>
                      </select>
                      <select name='cat_assign'>
                      <option>Pick a category</option>\n";
                      $fetch_category = mysql_query("SELECT cart_id, categoryname FROM categories WHERE cart_id='$cart' ORDER BY categoryname ASC") OR die('Query fetching categories failed');
                      while($row = mysql_fetch_array($fetch_category))
                      {
                      $catremoveslash = stripslashes($row[1]);
                 echo "<option>$catremoveslash</option>\n"; 
                      }
                echo "</select>
                      <p><label>Product Name:</label><input name='productname' value='{$_SESSION['productname']}' type='text' size='20' maxlength='80' /></p><br />
                      <p><label>Optionrows (0-20):</label><input name='nr_of_options' type='text' size='2' maxlength='2' /><br /></p>
                      <p><label>Product Picture:</label><input name='picornot' value='on' type='checkbox' /></p><br />
                     <p><label>Description:</label><textarea rows='8' cols='28' wrap='virtual' value='{$_SESSION['clean_desc']}' name='description'></textarea></p>
                     <span><input type='submit' name='prod_type_button' value='Process' /></span>
                 </fieldset>
                 </form>";
         echo '<div class="advice" style="margin-top: 8px"><br /><h2 class="hlook1">CONVENTIONS:</h2><strong>The following criteria must be met:</strong><ol><li>Product MUST be of a type, belong to a category and have a name.</li></ol><hr></hr>';
         die("</div><!-- advice end -->");
        }
}

[spookztar]

No bids?

[j_70]

Could you post the full code? I do not see session_start().

[spookztar]

it's there, don't worry. I also got a little further in the past 30 min.. I forgot adding ".php" to the filename in the "action" attribute and doing this allowed the first of the two variables to be shown, but not the second. Why this difference? Both variables are set, and can be echo'ed out just fine.

EDIT: I just found out that "value" is not a valid attribute for the "textarea" tag??? Is there a way around this? I can't have people having to re-type an entire product description.

[j_70]

Just feed the session value in between the textarea tags

<?php
$_SESSION['clean_desc']= "it's there, don't worry. I also got a little further in the 
past 30 min.. I forgot adding .php to the filename in the action attribute and doing 
this allowed the first of the two variables to be shown, but not the second. Why this 
difference? Both variables are set, and can be echo'ed out just fine.
<br>
EDIT: I just found out that value is not a valid attribute for the textarea tag??? Is there a way around this? I can't have people having to re-type an entire product description.";

print "<textarea rows='8' cols='28' wrap='virtual'  name='description'>{$_SESSION['clean_desc']}</textarea>";

?>

[spookztar]

@:

Yeah, it just dawned on me that the "textarea" tag isn't a selfenclosed tag.

Thanx for responding.

[j_70]

Glad to help. Make sure to mark the thread as resolved.