HTTP POST problem

[Anon]

Hi,

I've faced strange problem and suppose that it's either a bug or well known feature (I'm newbie to PHP).

I wrote PHP script which allows users to submit some data to the server using HTTP POST method (for sure, first call to script is done via GET).

In most cases script works (it allows users create, preview, edit existing or submit article). But sometimes check for POST variables doesn't work.

Say, I have
<form method="post" action="/PostColumn.php3">
<input type="text" name="title">
<p>
<textarea name="body" cols=80 rows=25>
</textarea><br>
<input type="submit" name="form_action" value="Preview">
<input type="submit" name="form_action" value="Submit">
</form>

For some data user enters in text area it works (in most cases), but for some data (I can't figure out where's the difference, it's not size of the data) script just doesn't get the value of the $form_action variable and performs default action.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Anon]

Can you show us the script that receives the variables passed to it?

Jim

[Anon]

Well,

Short introduction:

class PostColumn extends PostArticle
(as well as class PostNews extends PostArticle)

The difference is that different subclasses of PostArticle call super in their constructor with different Article type, i.e. PostColumn calls super in it's constructor with an instance of ColumnArticle while PostNews initializes super with NewsArticle.

All processing happens in PostArticle while Article itself (extended by either NewsArticle or ColumnArticle) handles storage in database, retrieval from DB etc.

Now the script itself:

<?php
#

$Id: PostArticle.php3,v 1.13 2000/11/23 15:17:39 star Exp $

#

require_once ('DB.php3');
require_once ('UserInfo.php3');
require_once ('Article.php3');

class PostArticle {
var $user, $date, $time, $article;
var $form_action, $self, $title, $body;
var $connection, $userInfo;

function PostArticle (
      $connection
     ,$article
) {
    $this->user = getenv("REMOTE_USER");
    $this->article = $article;
    $this->userInfo = new UserInfo($connection, $this->user);
    $this->connection = $connection;
}
function processRequest() {
    $this->self = $GLOBALS["PHP_SELF"];

    $this->article_id = $GLOBALS["article_id"];
    $this->title = stripslashes($GLOBALS["title"]);
    $this->body = stripslashes($GLOBALS["body"]);
    $this->form_action = $GLOBALS["form_action"];

    #echo "Action:" . $this->form_action . "<BR>";
    #echo "Method:" . $GLOBALS['REQUEST_METHOD'] . "<BR>";
    #echo '<HR>';
    switch($this->form_action) {
        case 'create' :
            $this->create();
            break;
        case 'edit' :
            $this->edit();
            break;
        case 'Preview' :
            $this->preview();
            break;
        case 'Submit' :
            $this->submit();
            break;
        default :
            $this->blank();
            break;
    }
}

...

Sometimes depending on content of posted form Preview and Submit never reached and default action is performed. It happens in rare cases and usually when content of form is not entered directly in browser but rather copied say from MS Word. I do not face such problems personally but users of our web-site do.

If required I can post the whole script.

Sergey