Help with my code!

Dclique

I'm a beginner in PHP.
I'm learning PHP from an ebook and as well following the exercises. Along the line, I got stuck with this example. see code below.

<html>
<head><title>Empty fields</title></head>
<body>
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
// set up array with all fields
$labels = array("first_name" => "First Name", "middle_name" => "Middle Name", "last_name" => "Last Name",
					 "phone" => "Phone");

// check each field except middle name for blanks
foreach($_POST as $field => $value)
{
	if($field != "middle_name")
	{
		if($value == "")
		{
			$blank_array[] = $field;
		}
	}
}

// if any fields were blank, display error message and redisplay form
if(count($blank_array) > 0)
{
	echo "<b>You didn't ill in one or more required fields. You must enter:</b><br>";
	// display list of missing information
	foreach($blank_array as $value)
	{
		echo "&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;{$labels[$value]}<br>";
	}

// redisplay form
echo "<p>";
echo "<form action='$_SERVER[PHP_SELF]' method='POST'>
		<table>";
foreach($labels as $field => $label)
{
	$good_data[$field] = strip_tags(trim($_POST[$field]));
	echo "<tr>
			<td style='text-align': right; font-weight:bold'>{$labels[$field]}</td>
			<td><input type='text' name='$field' size='45' maxlength='65' value='$good_data[$field]'></td>
			</tr>";
}
echo "<tr>
		<td colspan'2' style='text-align: center>
		 <input type='submit' value='Submit Name and Phone Number'>";
echo "</td></tr></table>
			</form>";
exit();
}
echo "All required fields contain information";
?>
</body></html>

The code is trying to check the required fields for blank from an html form, then redisplay the form with the error noticed. But on the PHP page, I recieve an error like

"Notice: Undefined variable: blank_array in D:\wamp\wamp\www\myProjects\tryCode\checkBlank.php on line 23
All required fileds contain information".

Please help me with this code, I have tried all I could do.

TheoGB

Are you sure there's not a page that should be calling checkBlank.php? This code won't run unless there's data in the $_POST array and that won't happen unless it's been called from a post request.

I think you've either missed a page of code detailing the form or the person who wrote the book has missed it out.

As you can see if you read the start of the code the array $blank_array is never going to be initialised if the $_POST array isn't filled.

Dclique

TheoGB

Thank you very much for the prompt response. I will take a closer look to the HTML that is been processed.

Once again, thank you very much

Dclique

TheoGB

The code still get me confuse. Can you please elaborate more on what you mean?

bradgrafelman

Then error message you're getting is caused by this line:

$blank_array[] = $field;

since you never defined $blank_array before attempting to use it as if it were already an array. To solve this, simply define the variable beforehand as a blank array, e.g.

$blank_array = array();

Dclique

Thanks. I will try that