[RESOLVED] PHP form trouble: undefined index

Getbrutal

OK, so I'm pretty new to PHP and I'm having trouble figuring out how this is working. I've read some posts about isset() but I don't exactly know how to work that out. Here is what i have: it should calc paycheck based on wage*hours.

<!DOCTYPE html
   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">



<head>
<title>Employee's Salary</title>

<meta name="author" content="Kathleen McKay" />
<meta name="description" content="Hours*Wage= Salary" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
    content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

</head>
<body>

<form action="Paycheck.php" method="post" >

Hours Worked: <input type="text" name="hours" id="hours" /> 
<input type="reset" value="Clear" /> 
<br />
Hourly Wage: <input type="text" name="wage" id="wage" /> 
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
<br />


</form>
</html>

PHP:

<?php
$hours = (int) $_GET["hours"];
$wages = (int) $_GET["wage"];
$pay =0;
$overtime = max($hours - 40, 0);
$pay += $overtime * $wages * 1.5;
$pay += ($hours - $overtime) * $wages;

print "Hours Worked: " . "$hours"; 
print "<br /> Hourly Rate: $" . "$wages";
print "<br /> Overtime Hours: " . "$overtime" ;
print "<br /> Your Paycheck is: $" . "round($pay, 2)" ;
?>

I get this as an error:
Notice: Undefined index: hours in G:\UniServer\www\Paycheck.php on line 16

Notice: Undefined index: wage in G:\UniServer\www\Paycheck.php on line 17
Hours Worked: 0
Hourly Rate: $0
Overtime Hours: 0
Your Paycheck is: $round(0, 2)

xxdalexx

I see two things at first glance. First, on the form page you have the method set to post, on the php page you are trying to pull from get variables, that should fix the index error. Either change the method to get, or change the variables on the php page from $GET to $POST.

Second, on the php page

print "<br /> Your Paycheck is: $" . "round($pay, 2)" ;

You have quotes around a function. Its just printing "round($pay, 2)", not running it as a function to calculate it.

Getbrutal

xxdalexx,

thanks for your help.. that round thing was dumb. you start looking at it so long everything looks wrong or everything looks right :eek:

here is my solution for anyone who is interested. I changed the method in the form to get and now it works great! thanks so much!!! 🙂

<?php
$hours = $_GET["hours"];
isset($hours) && !empty($hours)  ? $hours : "empty";
$wages = $_GET["wage"];
isset($wages) && !empty($wages) ? $wages : "empty";

$pay = 0;
$overtime = max($hours - 40, 0);
$pay += round($overtime * $wages * 1.5, 2);
$pay += round(($hours - $overtime) * $wages, 2);


print "<br /> Hourly Rate: $" . "$wages";
print "<br /> Overtime Hours: " . "$overtime" ;
print "<br /> Your Paycheck is: $" . "$pay";
?>

bradgrafelman

This code:

$hours = $_GET["hours"]; 
isset($hours) && !empty($hours)  ? $hours : "empty"; 
$wages = $_GET["wage"]; 
isset($wages) && !empty($wages) ? $wages : "empty";

doesn't make any sense. Specifically, the isset() stuff doesn't do anything and might as well be removed. Think about it - you're essentially writing code that does this:

$hours = $_GET["hours"]; 
$hours;
$wages = $_GET["wage"]; 
$wages;

Obviously, lines #2 and #4 don't mean (or do) anything. Using isset() is also pointless since it will always evaluate to true (you just defined the variable on the preceding line, so why wouldn't it be set?).

Instead, use [man]isset/man on the variable that might not be set, e.g. $_GET['hours']. Common way I define variables as you're doing:

$hours = (isset($_GET['hours'] ? (int)$_GET['hours'] : NULL);

EDIT: Oops - looks like PHP is at least smart enough to not define a variable if you try to set it's value equal to that of another undefined variable. Still, the other points above remain valid since your code is doing nothing but:

$hours = $_GET["hours"]; 
"empty";
$wages = $_GET["wage"]; 
"empty";

which still doesn't mean/do anything useful.

Getbrutal

well it wouldnt work without the isset(), so I'm not sure what I'm doing then? like i said, I'm very new at this.

Getbrutal

part of the idea is also to have validation for them, as far as inputs go ex(isset, how many characters, format)
i need to incorporate those

Getbrutal


<?php

function displayError($fieldName, $errorMsg) {
	global $error;
	echo "Error for \"$fieldName\": $errorMsg<br />\n";
	++$error;	
}

function validateWord($data, $fieldName) {
	global $error;
	if(empty($data)){
		displayError($fieldName, "This field is required");
	}
		if(!is_numeric($data)){

	displayError($fieldName, "Please use a numeric value");
} 
	}

$error =0;
$input = array();
$input[] = validateWord($_GET["hours"], "Hours Worked");
$input[] = validateWord($_GET["wage"], "Hourly Wage");


if($error == 0)  

{
$hours = $_GET["hours"];
$wages = $_GET["wage"];

$pay = 0;
$overtime = max($hours - 40, 0);
$pay += round($overtime * $wages * 1.5, 2);
$pay += round(($hours - $overtime) * $wages, 2);

print "<br /> Hourly Rate: $" . "$wages";
print "<br /> Overtime Hours: " . "$overtime" ;
print "<br /> Your Paycheck is: $" . "$pay";
}
else {
print "Please go back and re-enter the data. <br / >";
}
?>