HTTP_POST_VARS problem

[siri_suresh]

Hai all,

I am setting the name some thing like this for html form object.

<input type="checkbox" name="xxxx.au" >

At the form submission time i am getting the name of check box is xxxx_au instead of xxxx.au . I am geeting the name from http_post_vars. I am using windows NT mechine.

Is there any conditions for variable names in html as well as in php?

Can i have any clue? Thanks in advance.

Suresh.

[van__]

don't use the period.

period.

Why?
Because the w3c say so.

I know... so few people who write PHP bother to read the damn manual, so I really doubt you've ever read this:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#adef-name-INPUT

A complete description of the HTML4.1 spec for the FORM INPUT type... you'll notice input has an ATTR called name which is decribed as cdata.

what is cdata?
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.2

Your naming convention does not comply so your browser tries to fix the problem by replacing the '.' with a '_'.

And if you bother to study this:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
for a week or two, you might find that web devlopment will become a bit easier.

[van__]

Hopefully you're reading at the wc3 site and your eyes are about to pop out.

You may click around and read that the attr 'name' is included in the 4.01 spec for backwards compatability and that the recommended usage is 'id' which is a NAME token ('name=' as you used is a CDATA token).

And a name is defined as follows:
ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

so by using 'id' then you could use a '.' as part of the id of the element... atleast according to the w3c.

[siri_suresh]

Hi Van,

Thanks for ur advise, but as per document i am right. Is it correct? So there is some problem with HTTP_POST_VARS i think. So pl look in to actual problem.

Bye
Suresh

[van__]

No as per the document, you are wrong.
the usage of "name=" in the FORM element is deprecated and is used for backwards compatability.

if you read this:
name = cdata [CI]
That means that the name attribute is classified as a CDATA token, which is not the same as ID/NAME token

Here is the description of id:
id = name [CS]

you see?
'name' is CDATA : [CI](CASE INSENSTIVE)
'id' is NAME : [CS] (CASE SENSITIVE)

There is a BIG difference here.
The problem is not the HTTP_POST protocol.

But, hey...
believe what you want.
If you really insist that HTTP POST is broken, I'm not going to stand in your way.