[RESOLVED] form not setting

[zzyzzyzzx]

The title is the best way to explain it, i have some code im using for a contact us page on one of my sites, but it does not seem to want to set, and i have no clue why, its probably something small, but its making me feel stupid, i have been working on this code for ~5 hours

Thank you in advance for your help!

<?
// HTTP/1.1 
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"); 
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false); 

// HTTP/1.0 
header("Pragma: no-cache");
$sender_name_warning = "";
$sender_email_warning = "";
$sender_subject_warning = "";
$sender_comments_warning = "";
$image_error = "";
$all_error ="";
$number = "";
$email_to = "[e-mail]";
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {

echo "I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED";
session_start();

$sender_name = $_POST['name'];
$valid_sender_name = $sender_name;
$invalid_name = "<font color=\"#CC0000\">Please enter your name.</font>";
if (!$valid_sender_name) {$sender_name_warning = $invalid_name;}

$sender_email = $_POST['email'];
$valid_email_pattern = "^[_\.0-9a-z\-]+@([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]*\.)+[a-z]{2,6}$";
$valid_sender_email = eregi($valid_email_pattern, $sender_email);
$invalid_email = "<font color=\"#CC0000\">Please enter your Email.</font>";
if (!$valid_sender_email) {$sender_email_warning = $invalid_email;}

$sender_subject = $_POST['subject'];
$valid_sender_subject = $sender_subject;
$invalid_subject = "<font color=\"#CC0000\">Please enter a subject.</font>";
if (!$valid_sender_subject) {$sender_subject_warning = $invalid_subject;}

$sender_comments = $_POST['comments'];
$valid_sender_comments = $sender_comments;
$invalid_comments = "<font color=\"#CC0000\">Please enter your comments.</font>";
if (!$valid_sender_comments) {$sender_comments_warning = $invalid_comments;}

$number = $_POST['confirmcode'];

if (empty($number) || md5($number) != $_SESSION['image_random_value']) {
   $image_error = "<br /><font color=\"#CC0000\">Please enter a valid image verification code! Maybe you\'re having trouble seeing the image code clearly.<br />If so, just hit the \"Reset Image\" button</font>";
   $reset_image = "<input type=\"submit\" class=\"button\" name=\"submit\" value=\"reset image\" title=\"reset image\" />";
}

if (empty($sender_name) && empty($sender_email) && empty($sender_subject) && empty($sender_comments) && empty($number))
	{$all_error = "<font color=\"#CC0000\">All fields are required!</font><br />";}

if ($valid_sender_name && $valid_sender_email && $valid_sender_subject && $valid_sender_comments && md5($number) == $_SESSION['image_random_value']) {

$date = date('D M j G:i:s T Y');
$comments = stripslashes( $sender_comments );
$server_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

$messageproper = "---------------------------------------------------------<br />
Date: $date<br />
Name: $sender_name<br />
Email: $sender_email<br />
Address: $ip<br />
Subject: $sender_subject<br />
Comments: $comments<br />
ARIN Whois:  http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=$ip <br />
User Agent: $server_agent<br />
---------------------------------------------------------";

$headers = 'From: '.$sender_email."\r\n".
'Reply-To: '.$sender_email."\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
@mail($email_to, $sender_subject, $messageproper, $headers);  

$endofpage=<<<EOP
Thank you for contacting us!
we will get back to you as soon as we can :)
EOP;
exit;

   } 

}
?>
<table align="center" width="100%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0" class="maintable">
        <tr>
                <td class="tableh1" colspan="1">Contact Us</td>
        </tr>
<tr>
<td class="tableb">
	<div align="justify">You can use this form to send your comments/suggestions to the Administrators. <b>Please Note:</b> All fields are required and if you expect a reply, please include your correct email address. Thank you.</div><br />
		<div align="center"><?=$all_error?></div>
		<form name="blegh" action="index.php" method="post">
			Name: <?=$sender_name_warning?><br />
			<input type="text" name="name" value="<?=$sender_name?>" size="30" /><br />
			Email address: <?=$sender_email_warning?><br />
			<input type="text" name="email" value="<?=$sender_email?>" size="30" /><br />
			Subject: <?=$sender_subject_warning?><br />
			<input type="text" name="subject" value="<?=$sender_subject?>" size="40" /><br />

		Comments: <?=$sender_comments_warning?><br />
		<textarea rows="6" cols="40" name="comments"><?=$sender_comments?></textarea><br />
		<span class="footer">Enter Image Verification: This is to prevent automated entry from search bots. Letters must be in upper case.</span><br />
        <img src="randomimage.php"><input name="confirmcode" type="text" size="6" value="" />
		<input type="submit" value="Submit">
		<input type="button" class="button" value="Reset Form" title ="Reset Form" onClick="parent.location='index.php?file=contact_us/contact_us'" />
		<span class="footer">Resetting the form will delete any or all data entered!</span><?=$image_error . $reset_image?><br />
		<span class="footer">Please do not hit the Submit button more then once. It may take some time for the server to post your comment. Thanks!</span><br />
		</form>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

[bradgrafelman]

Welcome to PHPBuilder! When posting PHP code, please use the board's [noparse]

..

[/noparse] bbcode tags as they make your code much easier to read and analyze.

As for your issue, here are several comments/questions I came up with:

1. zzyzzyzzx;10999905 wrote:

   The title is the best way to explain it

   I sure hope not, because you really didn't explain anything at all. For example, here are just a few of the many basic/vital questions you've left unanswered:

   • What does it mean for a form to "set" (or to "not set")?

   • What are you seeing happen versus what you expected to happen?

   • Are you getting any PHP error messages?

   • If the answer to the above is "no," then... Did you verify (e.g. using [man]phpinfo/man) that display_errors is set to On and error_reporting is set to E_ALL (or better)?

2. <?

   My recommendation would be to never use the '<?' or '<?=' short open tags, since they can be disabled. Instead, always use the full '<?php' open tag.

3. You need to find a style of whitespace/indentation that you like and stick with it.

   I m  p r  ope r    lys pa  c  e    dco  de is   ha    rdtor  ea d  !  !!    !

4. echo "I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED I STARTED";
   session_start();

   Most often, cookies are used to propagate PHP's session ID from one page request to another. Since setting a cookie requires modifying the HTTP headers, you therefore must not generate any output before you call session_start().

   In other words, since you've got an echo statement just before a session_start() call, you're almost guaranteed to be causing errors.

5. Don't use the '@' error suppressor. Ever. It does absolutely nothing to help you; it's only purpose is actually quite the opposite - to hinder your progress in debugging a script by hiding potentially helpful error messages.

[zzyzzyzzx]

well when i click submit its almost as if it refreshes to the page again, i know thats how calling the same page does, except when i try something like echo $_POST['email']; it never shows me anything almost like the field was never set, i already moved the session_start(); to the top of the page with nothing above it, and for error messages, none, and yes i have error reporting on

[bradgrafelman]

One problem I note is that your code is wrapped in an if() statement:

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) { 

that will never be executed based upon the HTML form in that code snippet, because that form has no entity named 'submit'.

[zzyzzyzzx]

oh god i feel stupid, thank you for you help facepalm