Form Handling, There's got to be a more efficient way!

op2rules

Hey have you done guys done any decent form handling for web applications? I know I'm doing it wrong, but this is how I handle "if" and "response" forms...

I start by making a hidden form with a true value to identify it's usage, then...

if ($_POST['reverse'] == 'true')
{
// code
exit; // to stop anything else from happening
}

This would be how I handle everything in my CMS, and now my URL redirection system. Sometimes there are a lot of "if"'s to have because after input of a form, it gives new forms for more input before the final function of php code.

So anyways, what do guys you do?

op2rules

Also, A little random and off to the side, but should I be formatting my stuff with dots and single quotes or dots and double quotes, or just double quotes?

	echo "URL : <a href=\"$row['url']\">$row['url']</a><br>";
	echo "URL : <a href=\"".$row['url']."\">".$row['url']."</a><br>";
	echo 'URL : <a href=\"'.$row['url'].'\">'.$row['url'].'</a><br>';

Which is best?

bradgrafelman

As for your first question, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Are you just trying to see if a form was POST'ed, or if a specific form was POST'ed, or... ?

op2rules wrote:
Which is best?

Well, the first line has parse errors, so I definitely wouldn't go with that one.

The second one is a bit messy, what with the escaping of the quotes and concatenation and all... you could write it a bit more simply as:

echo "URL : <a href='$row[url]'>$row[url]</a><br>";

And finally, in the third one you don't need to escape the double quotes. In fact, by doing so, you actually output a literal backslash, which will break the HTML.

In other words, the second line you posted is the only one that's correct/without errors, so... I guess I'd pick that one if I had no other choices. :p

mrbaseball34

op2rules;10953554 wrote:
Hey have you done guys done any decent form handling for web applications? I know I'm doing it wrong, but this is how I handle "if" and "response" forms...

I start by making a hidden form with a true value to identify it's usage, then...
if ($_POST['reverse'] == 'true')
{
// code
exit; // to stop anything else from happening
}
This would be how I handle everything in my CMS, and now my URL redirection system. Sometimes there are a lot of "if"'s to have because after input of a form, it gives new forms for more input before the final function of php code.

So anyways, what do guys you do?

This is kind of how we are doing it:

How our form looks:

<form name="register" method="POST" action="register.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" onSubmit="return validateReg();">
<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="register">
<input type="hidden" name="type" value="2">      

<h3>Account Information</h3>
<div class="forms">
  <table border=0 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=3>
    <tr>
      <td><label for="username">Username</label></td>
      <td><label for="email">Email Address</label></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <input type="text" name="username" id="username" value="{$data.username}">
      </td>
      <td>
        <input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="{$data.email}">
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><label for="comments">Other form fields above here</label></td>
        <td><label for="logo">Your Company Logo (JPG, GIF or PNG Only; max size: 175px X 75px or 100KB)</label></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><textarea name="comments" rows=4 cols=30 wrap="soft"></textarea>
        <td><input type="file" name="logo" id="logo"></td>
    </tr>
    </tr>
  </table>    

  <input type="submit" value="Register!" class="form_btn">
</form>

form handler in register.php:

if($_POST['mode'] == "register")
{
  $result = $user->registerAccount($_POST, $_FILES, true);
  switch($result)
  {
    // Handle error conditions here
    case "username":
      $smarty->assign("msg", "There is a user already registered with your selected username, please try again.");
      break;
    case "success":
      $data = $smarty->fetch("content/register_success.html");
      $_POST['type'] = "";
    break;
    default:
      $smarty->assign("msg", "Sorry but we could not register your account at this time, please try again later.");
    break;
  }
}

function in the User class that handles the registration data:

function registerAccount($data, $files, $email_flag = true)
{
  // Code here to work with the $data and $files variables
  // check the username
  if($this->alreadyMemberUserBased($data['username']))
  {
    return "username";
  }
  // More code here to do the registering
}

op2rules

bradgrafelman;10953563 wrote:
As for your first question, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Are you just trying to see if a form was POST'ed, or if a specific form was POST'ed, or... ?

Well, the first line has parse errors, so I definitely wouldn't go with that one.

The second one is a bit messy, what with the escaping of the quotes and concatenation and all... you could write it a bit more simply as:
echo "URL : <a href='$row[url]'>$row[url]</a><br>";
And finally, in the third one you don't need to escape the double quotes. In fact, by doing so, you actually output a literal backslash, which will break the HTML.

In other words, the second line you posted is the only one that's correct/without errors, so... I guess I'd pick that one if I had no other choices. :p

Alright yea that's the one I'm currently using anyways, I just pasted it 3 times and put examples, not checking them etc Thanks for the info tho!

As for mrbaseball, that is pretty much how I'm doing mine too, an if to check if a hidden form is posted.

Finally bradgrafelman,

My question is pretty much to check to see if a form is posted. Let's say I have 3 forms that all target to the same php file. In that php file, I want to know how to analyze which form was used from the 'previous' page. My code is a little more complex than just that too, like for my CMS for example there are responses that ARE forms, that target once again, the same file. So what I want to know is if there is a better way to check which form was sent than by doing a big long list of if(){}'s.