Viral PHP URL

isleofman

I'm trying to replicate this tutorial:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/pos … ribe-form/

I am unable to get the confirmation page to display the unique URL, as defined in the PHP $SESSION['id'] The ref also doesn't appear for the successful subscriber in the campaign manager. All that is shown is <?=$SESSION['name']?>

It might be that I haven't set up PHP correctly or I am missing something in the PHP session before the head tag.

Could somebody please tell me why I'm being such a fool?
Many thanks!

bradgrafelman

Welcome to PHPBuilder!

This:

<?=$_SESSION['name']?>

should be written as this:

<?php echo $_SESSION['name']; ?>

since the former relies on the short_tags PHP directive being enabled (which it often is not, as is recommended).

While your link was broken, its use of short tags makes me lose a lot of confidence in the rest of the content of that tutorial. 😉

isleofman

Many thanks for your swift reply.

I think I'm actually doing something really stupid. If you look at my test page you might be able to see the full problem.

http://bit.ly/kP8Euf

NogDog

Unless you reconfigure your web server to process ".html" files as PHP, you probably need to change the file name to use a ".php" suffix.

isleofman

I've now replicated the page as a php page:
http://bit.ly/m0VV6V

I now get:

[CODE]Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at /home1/metoikio/public_html/argadnel/test.php:2) in /home1/metoikio/public_html/argadnel/test.php on line 5

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at /home1/metoikio/public_html/argadnel/test.php:2) in /home1/metoikio/public_html/argadnel/test.php on line 5

[/CODE]

bradgrafelman

As the error message states, you've got output on line #2 before the session_start() call on line #5. Eliminate it or move it to after the session_start() call.

isleofman

Right got rid of that error - and am now seeing an ID being populated in the campaign manager.

I'm not however seeing a ref URL being shown in the subscribe success page.

The code now looks like:

<?php
session_start();
$share_url = (isset($_GET['subscribe']) && isset($_SESSION['name'])) ? 'http://www.argadnel.com?ref='.$_SESSION['name'] : '' ;
$referid = (isset($_GET['ref'])) ? $_GET['ref'] : '';
if (!isset($_SESSION['name'])) {
    $_SESSION['name'] = '';
    $chars = '23456789bcdfghjkmnpqrstvwxyz';
    for ($n=0; $n<6; $n++) {
        $_SESSION['name'] .= $chars[mt_rand(0, strlen($chars)-1)];
    }
}
?>

and the form looks like:

<form action="http://argadnel.createsend.com/t/r/s/qjhtdi/" method="post" id="subForm">
<label for="qjhtdi-qjhtdi">Email:</label><br /><input type="text" value="Email address" onFocus="this.value=''" onBlur="if(this.value==''){this.value='Email address'}" name="cm-qjhtdi-qjhtdi" id="qjhtdi-qjhtdi" />

<input type="hidden" name="cm-f-bihft" id="name" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['name']; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="cm-f-bihfi" id="ref" value="<?php echo $referid?>" />
<input type="submit" value="subscribe" />
</form>
</div>

bradgrafelman

What is the URL you're using to access that page? Does it not have the 'ref' parameter in the query string?

isleofman

The subscribe success page is:
http://bit.ly/meONfc

isleofman

test.php?subscribe=true

bradgrafelman

Well then why do you expect $referid to be anything but an empty string?

isleofman

I'm really sorry - quite confused now.
Trying to produce something like this site:

http://www.mylittlegeek.com/

Where on entering the email the unique URL is displayed. Does that help?

bradgrafelman

isleofman wrote:
Does that help?

Not really.

You said this:

isleofman wrote:
I'm not however seeing a ref URL being shown in the subscribe success page.

which I assumed meant that this:

<input type="hidden" name="cm-f-bihfi" id="ref" value="<?php echo $referid?>" />

hidden element has an empty value, e.g. $referid is empty. However, that variable is defined like this:

$referid = (isset($_GET['ref'])) ? $_GET['ref'] : '';

and yet you accessed the page using a query string like this:

test.php?subscribe=true

hence my confusion.

You accessed the page without a 'ref' parameter in the URL, and yet you expected $referid to have a non-empty value? I'm afraid I don't follow.

isleofman

Now I've completely confused myself now. This should be straightforward :S

How would you do it?

bradgrafelman

isleofman;10983178 wrote:
How would you do it?

Do what?

isleofman

Basically an email subscribe form which would submit the email address to an external email subscriber list (Campaign Monitor).

On the successful submission the user would be taken to a confirmation page where a Unique URL would be displayed (ie http://mydomain.com/vvj2b)

This URL reference would allow the user to share this link with their friends/social network and each referral would be noted in the external subscriber list.

isleofman

No suggestions?