2 Page Form advice

jmbrink26

Hey Everyone,

Was wondering if you could give me some insight on a task I am trying to accomplish.

My boss has told me to modify a form script I wrote almost 2 years ago, and put it into 2 pages. For some reason, the marketing dept. wants this form in 2 pages for some odd reason.

Well one stipulation to it, is they want information from page 1 sent off, even if they close the page before submitting part 2 of the form on page 2.

My boss said do not use databases, at least for now. So I'm trying to think of a way to make this work.

Now the way my boss initially wanted it to work is if the visitor closes the page, then have the e-mail sent off, but only then. And because closing a browser window is a client side event, and not a server event, client side scripting is the only way to make it work that I can think of. I tried nosing around to see if PHP had any function at all that could handle something like that, and either it doesn't exist, or I just wasn't finding it.

So, I tried using the JavaScript onUnload event, and calling a JS function that I placed in <head>, which the function called a PHP function using document.write. I was sure that wouldn't work, but thought it was worth a shot none the less. And of course, it didn't work.

So another approach I tried was sending two e-mails, but my boss doesn't like that idea, and the session variables I created do not seem to like being sent off twice anyway. One e-mail will contain only part of the data, and the second e-mail will have the rest (when both pages are submitted), but not necessarily in the proper order of forms.

I thought about trying a cookie, but cookies are loaded when the page loads, much like sessions and session variables. Therefore I am almost completely positive there is no way to store the variables to a cookie from the same page like that.

So I am just out of ideas here how to make this work. If someone could guide me in the right direction, that'd be awesome.

Thanks in advance for your help. 🙂

NogDog

You gotta love people imposing technical restrictions on you while simultaneously requesting incompatible functional requirements. :rolleyes:

If they really require both of the functional requirements of having the form split across two pages and sending an email if the second page is never submitted, then -- perhaps after explaining why that's not a terribly great requirement when you consider that HTTP is a stateless protocol -- I would, in fact, use a database solution. I would store the first page results in the database with a time-stamp and a primary key value that I would either keep in the session data or as a hidden field in the 2nd form page. Upon submission of the 2nd page I would delete the corresponding record from the database for the first page's data after I'm done with it.

You would then need a cron job (or however else you want to implement it) to run a script that would look for first-page records with a time-stamp older than some arbitrary amount of time, sending the required email for each and then deleting it from the table (or marking it as "sent" in some manner to avoid multiple sendings). This removes any dependency upon client-side processing to determine if "Elvis has left the building."

jmbrink26

LOL I hear ya.

I have actually considered that option intially. I may just have to fight back a little and say DB's are the only way to go. Yeah I was thinking of a cron job myself, too. 😛

That's about what I thought, there is no other way to go about this.

And as good ol' Elvis said "Thank ya, thank ya very much!" 😉

Weedpacket

One suggestion is to get some clarification on the requirements:

jmbrink26 wrote:
For some reason, the marketing dept. wants this form in 2 pages for some odd reason.

What they're asking for may not necessarily be what they actually want.

My boss said do not use databases, at least for now.

That's like having a panelbeating company with a boss that rules out the use of power tools. If it's a matter of not wanting to install and maintain a DBMS, then [man]SQLite[/man] will provide an inboard database mechanism that doesn't need an additional server process.

dagon

when my boss says stupid things i just do it my way, as he never checks the code and wouldn't understand it if he did, its safe to ignore all his constants and do it property.

jmbrink26

Weedpacket;10911073 wrote:
One suggestion is to get some clarification on the requirements:
What they're asking for may not necessarily be what they actually want.

That's like having a panelbeating company with a boss that rules out the use of power tools. If it's a matter of not wanting to install and maintain a DBMS, then [man]SQLite[/man] will provide an inboard database mechanism that doesn't need an additional server process.

I agree, I don't think they understand what they are asking for, but from dealing w/ them in the past, they're the type you have to prove why it doesn't work a certain way. It sucks, but not much I can do about that 😉

LOL yeah, and my boss pretty much didn't want to manage another DB, but yeah. She's just going to have to accept that sometimes the DB is the only way! 😛

jmbrink26

dagon;10911079 wrote:
when my boss says stupid things i just do it my way, as he never checks the code and wouldn't understand it if he did, its safe to ignore all his constants and do it property.

I wish I could do that. Problem is, she is a developer herself, but she's one of those .net developers (lame I know 😛), that knows how things work, just not specifically with PHP and a few other things.

You got lucky w/ the ignorant boss! 😛

ryneaux

You can simply write to a flat file and setup a chron job to mail off the stored results...its a database...without a database.

jmbrink26

ryneaux;10911289 wrote:
You can simply write to a flat file and setup a chron job to mail off the stored results...its a database...without a database.

I have considered that, but I just can't think how I could have it read each file independantly.

I would have to be something along the effect of creating a session id or something, and then have to generate say a text file with the name of the session id.

But I can't figure out past that part. So I create a cron job that is scheduled, but how do I tell what is waiting to be sent with a flat file?

ryneaux

Actually you wouldn't need to create a new file per first page access. Just use one file. Each separate access group separated by a pipe "|" and each group's individual field value separated by a degree "°" ( for example ) when the script that will be responsible for mailing off all the unprocessed info reads the data it simply explodes on pipe first which gives an array of groups, and then set up a "for" loop to explode each group on degree, plug the values into your e-mail and send it...move to the next. When finished, empty the file.

I think the most unpleasant part will be removing the piece in the case that the person actually completes the second part of the form.

Definitely not the prettiest way about it but it would probably function...and your boss didn't leave you too many options...

jmbrink26

ryneaux;10911354 wrote:
Actually you wouldn't need to create a new file per first page access. Just use one file. Each separate access group separated by a pipe "|" and each group's individual field value separated by a degree "°" ( for example ) when the script that will be responsible for mailing off all the unprocessed info reads the data it simply explodes on pipe first which gives an array of groups, and then set up a "for" loop to explode each group on degree, plug the values into your e-mail and send it...move to the next. When finished, empty the file.

I think the most unpleasant part will be removing the piece in the case that the person actually completes the second part of the form.

Definitely not the prettiest way about it but it would probably function...and your boss didn't leave you too many options...

Yeah, I can see how that would work. And yeah the trickiest part will be pulling out the data when both pages are submitted.

So I think if I did something like create a session id of some kind, then output the variables from page 1 to the text file and pipe it, then if the 2nd page is submitted have it find the section matching that session id, and delete the left pipe and everything before the right pipe (if there is one), but otherwise, have a file in which a cron job will run at a certain time to send out a batch of e-mails for the incomplete requests.

Now with cron, if I have run a php file, would I put the URL to the php file, or would I just point it to the file name? That kind of sounds like a stupid question, but want to make sure I have that right. 😉

ryneaux

The actual way to run your php file through a cron job would depend upon how you would set it up, but the command would be:

php -q /home/pathto/public_html/automailer.php

You can probably find decent instructions somewhere specifically for the method you will need to use to set yours up.

jmbrink26

ryneaux;10911358 wrote:
The actual way to run your php file through a cron job would depend upon how you would set it up, but the command would be:
php -q /home/pathto/public_html/automailer.php
You can probably find decent instructions somewhere specifically for the method you will need to use to set yours up.

Right. Awesome, thank you.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think about instead of a text file, using an XML file, where instead of using a piped output, each "instance" creates another child node, in which one of the elements could be sessionID, and then have it delete those child nodes either when it goes to page 3, or via a cron job.

I was thinking that could be a bit cleaner way to go about it, but not sure if that'll work though. In theory I think it would, but I couldn't say for sure. I've dealt w/ XML before using PHP, but more so just to read the contents of a file, not actually writing and modifying it on the fly like that.

Weedpacket

How about using an [man]SQLite[/man] file? That would make it a bit easier to switch to using a proper database if and when the boss relents.

jmbrink26

That could be doable. I haven't played much with SQLite in general yet, guess I'm I've been in my "comfort zone" with MySQL 😛

I have been meaning to at least learn SQLite anyway, so may as well start now right?

I assume PHP has a SQLite class? I haven't actually poked around for it, but I would imagine they do. If they have an Oracle, MySQL, SQL 200x, and Postgres class, I can't imagine why they wouldn't have a SQLite class... 😉

Anyway, so by using a SQLite file, would I be creating records in a table that just aren't really in a DB, they are just in a file?

Weedpacket

See the provided link.

dagon

jmbrink26;10911671 wrote:
Anyway, so by using a SQLite file, would I be creating records in a table that just aren't really in a DB, they are just in a file?

would it be splitting hairs to point out that databases store data in files?

Weedpacket

The real difference is that SQLite doesn't involve a separate system to manage the database, while a separate database management system ... does.

jmbrink26

dagon;10911700 wrote:
would it be splitting hairs to point out that databases store data in files?

LOL Good point 😛 Just structured a bit different than you're typical file is all...

jmbrink26

Well got word from my boss again. I guess the stupid marketing dept. has let up a bit. They don't necessarily need the incomplete results every time, but rather they will periodically compare those who do and don't complete both pages from time to time.

So now she wants to try going with a tab delimited file... Such a pain the ass. I know deep down the reason she doesn't want to use a DBMS is because or network admin/ assistant dir. of IT, is an "anal prick" (excuse my french), that would be so far up our asses if we even asked him to setup a DBMS on the server just for this, and so on and so forth.

We do have some SQL 2005 databases, but he eyes those like a hawk, and just know he'd raise hell about that. He's the power trip kind of guy. Hell I had to install Hotspot Shield on my Mac just so I can get to everything I need to reference to do things like this. He installed this proxy on the WAN, and have the forum sites that have possible solutions when I google something, come up as "social networking" sites, it's ridiculous.

Anyway, so whats your thoughts on a good tab delimited handling method? I was looking at PHPExcel, but since I don't have server access (another peeve... 😉 ), I have to wait for my boss to create a file with the php_info() function in it, so I can see what is and isn't enabled in the PHP.ini.

Yeah, this whole thing due to the environment and circumstances is a major pain in the ass... 😛