[RESOLVED] PHP vs ASP classic difference

Square1

Hi all:

I am in the home stretch of converting my site over to PHP from ASP classic. I have come across a couple of quirky things. This one has to do with forms...

In ASP I enter info into a form which then posts this info into another form. The reason for this is to limit the results of the second form or it takes forever to load. I submit info in the second form, submit to the DB and I am set. Many times I need to enter almost identical info for another record so I just click the back button and it takes me back to the second form, already populated, and I just change 1 or 2 fields and I am set. This is in ASP. This ability to hit the back button and have the form already populated is a TREMENDOUS time saver.

In PHP it is a different story. When I hit the back button I am forced to refresh the page and in turn lose all my populated fields.

Does anyone know the reason for the difference in how these pages are handled between ASP and PHP and what I can do (other than sessions or a DB query) to have PHP work like ASP in this situation?

This is in Firefox

Thanks!

bradgrafelman

You'd have to examine the output of both implementations and see what differs, because in the end there is no form "in PHP" or "in ASP" - the form is in HTML, as that's all the browser sees and understands.

Square1

The output in both the ASP page and PHP page is the same. They are both inputting data to a DB record.

Does anyone know what would cause this and then I can see if I have that issue in my script?

NogDog

You might want to search on this in an ASP-centric forum, but I think I recall reading somewhere about ASP (or maybe .NET?) doing something specific with how such situations are handled, but I don't remember any of the details. (Some help I am, huh?)

For a work-around, you could store the fields of interest in $_SESSION, then use those values to populate applicable form fields (though that probably won't get rid of the need to do a refresh).

<input name='foo' value='<?php
if(isset($_SESSION['values']['foo'])) { echo htmlspecialchars($_SESSION['values']['foo']); }
?>' />

Derokorian

Better yet, create a "back" button that is really a form submit button, with hidden fields for all the data you wish to keep, and repost to the second form with this button.

Square1

OK, so I am not going nuts. This is a PHP thing (or ASP thing depending on your POV). If so then I will stop trying to fix something that isn't broken and use sessions or the faux back button.

Thanks!

bradgrafelman

It's neither a PHP nor an ASP "thing" - it's either an HTML or HTTP "thing." Your browser can't tell if you're programming in PHP, ASP, or assembly. All it can do is render the HTML given according to the HTTP headers received from the server.

Whether or not ASP has some different cache control header values or whatnot is simply a matter of implementation (and certainly nothing you can't mimic in PHP).

Square1

bradgrafelman;10992085 wrote:
It's neither a PHP nor an ASP "thing" - it's either an HTML or HTTP "thing." Your browser can't tell if you're programming in PHP, ASP, or assembly. All it can do is render the HTML given according to the HTTP headers received from the server.

Whether or not ASP has some different cache control header values or whatnot is simply a matter of implementation (and certainly nothing you can't mimic in PHP).

Thanks Brad. It looks like you pointed me in the right direction with cache control header. I Googled it and it looks like adding the following may be the fix

session_cache_limiter ('private_no_expire, must-revalidate');