[RESOLVED] PHP POST browser refresh?

thetao

Hi,

I am using PHPMailer-FE, and trying to come up with a system for populating the "thank you" results page with data from the form. (For those who aren't familiar with PHPMailer-FE, it's one of many form mail engines.) By default, PHPMailer-FE uses a meta-refresh to load a static "thank you" page. I believe that I can easily insert PHP variables into the meta-refresh GET, and pass all the data over that way.....but there could be lots of data, making this a somewhat messy solution. I found PHP POST scripts like the one at http://netevil.org/blog/2006/nov/http-post-from-php-without-curl, which works okay, but I haven't been able to find a technique that refreshes the browser in the same way as using a meta-refresh or submitting any HTTP form. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

I'm new to PHP and web development (but not new to programming), and am struggling to find a technique to accomplish this kind of "browser refresh" through a POST. Put another way, I want to perform something exactly like an HTTP POST from within a PHP script. Does anybody have suggestions? Thanks!

NogDog

Could you put it into session data?

thetao

I wasn't familiar with PHP sessions until now (did a few web searches). It seems a bit complicated, and I'm unclear how the server differentiates between simultaneous sessions. It can't use IP addresses or user-agent data... (The descriptions I've seen make it seem like magic.) Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep it on my list...but I was hoping for something more straightforward.

NogDog

There is an exchange of a cookie which carries a unique, pseudo-random session ID. Session data for each different user/session is stored with a file name based on that same ID.

So, all you need to do is initialize a session with session_start(), and it automates everything concerning looking for that cookie, setting it for a new session, etc.

In your email script:

<?php
session_start();  // must come before *any* type of output.

// save data in session:
$_SESSION['post'] = $_POST; // simple solution, you could save specific fields if you want

// send your email, then redirect to success page, etc.
?>

success.php:

<?php
session_start();

echo "Thanks for your email, " . htmlentities($_SESSION['post']['name']) . ".";
?>

thetao

Well, that looks very straightforward after all. I'll check it out.

thetao

I'm trying to make this work, but so far am not able to retrieve the PHP variables. I assume the $POST variables need to exist (ie. I must submit the form first) before I can copy them to $SESSION, so while I have a

session_start();

at the top of each document, I've added

$SESSION['post'] = $POST;

to the PHPMailer-FE configuration file. But my "thank you" page is still appearing blank. I'll continue testing, but if anyone has suggestions on what might be going wrong, I'm listening. Thanks again!

thetao

Put another way, is there any trick to making $_SESSION variables work on non-user-facing PHP scripts?

NogDog

One thing you may need to do if doing a header() redirect is to do a [man]session_write_close/man right before you do it, to ensure that the session data is saved.

<?php
session_start();

// blah blah blah....

session_write_close();
header(Location: 'http://www.example.com/success.php');
exit;
?>

thetao

I finally got it working through trial and error. I was originally doing the variable associations in the config.php file, but that file was not the target of the form. I enabled the main PHPMailer-FE file for sessions and moved the associations there, and everything now works fine. Given the size of the PHPMailer-FE script, using sessions appears to slow down the form submission process, but if so, that's something I can address later.

Thanks for the suggestions!

NogDog

Glad you got it working. Don't forget to mark this thread resolved -- if it is -- via the "Thread Tools" link near the top. 🙂