Defining functions...

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Apr 17, 2001, 06:25
KeithMcL
Hi fellow server side scripters :D

I'm very new to PHP and am working on creating a form that uses PHP.

Basically what i'm hoping to do is:
- Check if the submit button has been pressed or not.
- Check that a valid email address format has been entered.
- If the submit button has not been pressed (ie. it's the first visit to the page) then produce the form fields.
- If the form has been filled out and the page submitted, populate the appropriate areas with the details submitted.
- Once all details have been verified as correct, submit the info again, but this time the script emails myself with the info and also emails the $email with the similar info but an extra paragraph or two and also reload the page with the submitted details, plus a thank you note.
My questions are:
- I should do this all on the same page or not?
- How do I differenciate between the first submit button and the second one?
- How should I setup the script to send 2 different emails to me and the person that filled out the form?
If there is anything else you feel I should do with this script please post it here.

I hope I explained myself clearly and concisely :)

rgds,
Apr 17, 2001, 06:29
KeithMcL

Oops...the thread title doesn't have anything to do with the post :p

I must have got carried away when typing and ended up forgetting about what I was going to ask a the start.

I also wanted to ask if I should define certain functions at the start of the script for the likes of check_submit and check_email to use further on in the script :)
Apr 17, 2001, 06:47
randyw

General way I do this is...

like this. Call this samepage.php...

<?php
do {
if (!isset($mode)) // mode wasn't set, print form
break;
if (!emailaddressvalid($email)) // you need to write this fun
break;
mailmessage($email); // ditto, this will email to the user
header("location: otherpage.php"); // done, redirect
}while (0);
?>
<HTML>
<BODY>
<FORM action="samepage.php" method=GET>
<INPUT type=hidden name=mode value=1>
<input type=text name=email size=64>
<input class=cFF type=submit value="OK">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>

RW

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Apr 17, 2001, 06:51
padders

let me take some of this:

1. Form actions.

the way i do it is have a hidden field in the form, the 1st form created would be

<form type="hidden" name="do" value="check">

sort of thing and then for second one you would do

<form type="hidden" name="do" value="email">

Then your php script is going to have 3 sections like

PHP Code:

if (!$do) { print the first form } elseif ($do == "check") { print the checking form with variables from first } elseif ($do == "email") { send emails display thank you note } else { major error, how on earth did they get here! only by typing in the query string do=sdfsdf or something display erorr message }

that is your setup.

To confirm an email use the function

PHP Code:

function check_email ($str) { // returns 1 if a valid email, 0 if not if (ereg ("^.+@.+\\..+$", $str)) { return 1; } else { return 0; } }

then call it like:

PHP Code:

if (!check_email ($email)) { $submit = 0; $email = "<B>Invalid E-mail Address</b>"; }

if you are only using it once it might not be worth doing it as a function but good practice.

Emails:

just do the code twice for sending an email once with your email, once with theres with different message and subject.
Apr 17, 2001, 07:19
nguip

Hmm..

I suggest that you go thru Kelvin's tutorial on building a database driven site using php and mysql.

It should solve your problem :)
Apr 17, 2001, 07:28
KeithMcL

Quote:

Originally posted by nguip
Hmm..

I suggest that you go thru Kevin's tutorial on building a database driven site using php and mysql.

It should solve your problem :)

I have read Kevins tutorial on PHP and MySQL along with the wrox book "Professional PHP Programming" and altough Kevins tutorial is extremely good, it's more geared towards setting up a joke of the day script.

Thanks anyhow!
Apr 17, 2001, 07:43
padders

did we help at all?
Apr 17, 2001, 08:06
KeithMcL

Absolutely :D