Quick validation question

[mak-uk]

Hi all

I have a FORM that requires the user to input stuff.. surprise! (not).. okay.. then I have some validation regular expressions for the fields of the form.

Then I have the form displayed AGAIN if the user has entered something in wrongly in the first form. The way I do this is by using an $ErrorArray variable to keep an incremental store of errors.

What I was now wondering is, on the re-displayed form, how to code it so that fields with an error are returned to being blank (for re-entry) and fields which are validated 'okay' contain the valid data that was entered previously.

Thanks.

Mak

[Icheb]

If an entry is invalid, just unset the value's variable and the according field will be empty.

[Dr Livingston]

Hello, sorry I have not helped you much lately...

Been busy, although to your question; the part of your script which registers the actual error message, ie

$errorArray[] = 'Please enter your email address';
.
. 

Maybe instead of relying on incremental indexing, why not use assocc ?

.
.
# checking email FROM INPUT from user at this point...
$errorArray['Email'] = 'Please enter your email address';
.
.
# rest of script 

Now then, to check if you need to put the email address back to the FORM; ie the email address is valid, then you simply check for this array index being null or empty ?

If so, then take the $_POST[...] sent by the user via form submission and place this back into the FORM ?

# part of script to re-display FORM due to finding bad inputs from user
.
.
$flag = false;
#msg = '';
if(empty($errorArray['Email'])) {
# email address was okay so keep it
$msg = $_POST['email'];
}
# now create the INPUT box again
<input type='text' name='email' value='<?php echo($msg); ?>' size='16' maxlength='48'>
.
.
# check for next INPUT box etc

That'd work for you ?

[mak-uk]

Hi

Great, that works

However, what I was wondering is when I have a drop-down box, it does not appear to remember the last option selected:

// Validate relation_select
  if (empty($_POST["relation_select"])) {
   $ErrorArray["relation_select"] = "Please select who is posting this profile.";
  }
 
if(empty($ErrorArray["relation_select"])) {
  $okrel_select = $_POST["relation_select"];
 }
 
<SELECT NAME="relation_select" class="formselect" value="<?php echo($okrel_select); ?>" />
<OPTION SELECTED VALUE="">Select</OPTION>
<?php
       while ($rel_q = mysql_fetch_array($relation_query)) {
            $relation_id = $rel_q["relationID"];
            $relation_type = $rel_q["relationType"];
            echo("<OPTION VALUE='$relation_id'>$relation_type<BR>\n");
   }
?>
</SELECT>

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Mak

[Dr Livingston]

Not sure myself, can anyone else help out here ?

[mak-uk]

Hi

Do you think it is because a drop-down box doesn't use a 'value' property like a text box does?

In that case, do you know how I would set the proper option to 'selected'?

Thanks.

Mak

[Icheb]

A dropdown menu uses values. You have to check whether the value is equal to a different value or not. If it is equal, output "selected".