[RESOLVED] form does not submit

jrough

I'm getting weird errors in the W3 validator. In debugging it I found the form does not submit and process subsequent php code. Can you see something wrong with my php code? It is only in 2 places but am I missing a quote or something to make it not submit? thanks,

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Login Form</title>
	<link href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" >
</head>

<body>
<div id="wrapper">
	<h1  class="cent" style="border-bottom: #000000 1px solid;">Login</h1>
	<h3 class="error"><?php showMessage();?></h3>
        <p>
  		<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
			<input name="username" type="text" size="30" maxlength="30"><br>
			<input name="password" type="password" size="30" maxlength="30" ><br>
			<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Login" ><br>
		</form>
        </p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

nevvermind

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your DTD refers to HTML 4.01 Strict, whereas your code seems to be more XHTML 1.0 Strict.
If that's the case, use this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

Also, aren't you missing the opening html tag?
Is your file saved with a php extension?
Where's the php code processing it?
I don't think it's a good idea to put a form inside a <p> tag. Use a div instead if you really need it; you could style the form with css (including its position, if that's what you're after).

jrough

Thanks for spotting the missing html tag.

I got this from a php login class and I'm trying to get the login to work so I changed some things.

I put back in the xhtml tags and meta tags and it still doesn't submit. I don't think it needs to be xhtml. Does the media =all relate to xhtml? I don't need that but I think it is something else.

I took out the formatting and put it in css. It still doesn't submit.

The page is saved as a php extension. Below is the whole page. I have the debugging echo statement and the xx does get echoed but the submit button does not get submitted. I keep getting the 2nd error message, "Incorrect login details". It should at least show it is submitted.

tnx,

<?php
session_start(); 
require_once('LoginSystem.class.php');
	echo "x" . $_POST['submit'] . "x"   ;
	if( $_POST['submit']!='' ) {

	if(($_POST['username']=='') || ($_POST['password']==''))
	{
		// display error message
              echo  var_dump($_SESSION);
		header('location: loginForm.php?msg=1');// show error

		exit;
	}

	$loginSystem = new LoginSystem($db_host,db_name,db_user,db_password,$username,$password);
            $submit=$_POST['submit'];
            $username=$_POST['username'];
            $password=$_POST['password'];

	if($loginSystem->doLogin($_POST['username'],$_POST['password'])){
                    echo "host".$LoginSystem->dbhost;
                    echo "database".$LoginSystem->dbname;
                    echo "user".$LoginSystem->dbuser;
                    echo "password".$LoginSystem->dbpassword;


		/**
		 * Redirect here to your secure page
		 */
                echo $_POST['username'] .$_POST['password'];
		header('location: admin1.php');
	}
	else
	{
		header('location: loginForm.php?msg=2');
		exit;
	}
}


function showMessage()
{
	if(is_numeric($_GET['msg']))
	{
		switch($_GET['msg'])
		{
			case 1: echo "Please fill both fields.";
			break;

			case 2: echo "Incorrect Login Details";
			break;
		}
	}
}
?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Login Form</title>
	<link href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" >
</head>

<body>
<div id="wrapper">
	<h1  class="cent" >Login</h1>
	<h3 class="error"><?php showMessage();?></h3>
        <p>
  		<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
			<input name="username" type="text" size="30" maxlength="30"><br>
			<input name="password" type="password" size="30" maxlength="30" ><br>
			<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Login" ><br>
		</form>
        </p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Bbob

Im using jQuery to get the values from a form and pass to PHP for validation. Once validations are ok, how do I redirect to another page?

Using PHP header(location) doesnt seem to work.

jrough

header('location: ') does work , do you have quotes around it? Make sure the path is right. You don't have to put the path if it is in the same directory as the current page. Make sure the page you locate to has the right extension. It may be your validation. On a separate page try your code just relocating to the page without the validation to see if it works. To narrow down the issue.

Bbob

Sorry I accidentally replied to this thread ><, I was suppose to make one.

I had proper code using header header('Location: main.php');

Will make a new thread now...

johanafm

The document does indeed seem to be 4.01, but the validation errors are not weird at all. The doctype, http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd, states

<!ELEMENT FORM - - (%block;|SCRIPT)+ -(FORM) -- interactive form -->

whereas INPUT and BR are neither %block nor SCRIPT. So to make your form part correct, you change it into a structure looking like this

<form>
	<!-- form must contain only block level elements -->
	<div>
		<!-- div can contain %inline -->
		<input><br>
	</div>
</form>

But, you also have a P element containing a FORM, while the DTD states

<!ELEMENT P - O (%inline;)*            -- paragraph -->

Which means that the validator closes the paragraph in the same way as if you had written

</p><form>

And so far everything is correct since html 4.01 does not require you to explicitly close paragraphs. However, it does require you to have properly nested and matching tags. After the form, the parsers sees </p> which has no matching opening tag.
Replace the paragraph with something that does allow block level elements, such as <div>...</div>.

The media attribute determines when the CSS should be used: print, screen, all

jrough

thanks,