A few questions concerning PHP form processing

[deronsizemore]

I've got to design a script that will process two forms for a car dealership. The form will consist of text fields, radio buttons, and drop down lists. I am familiar with processing information from text fields, but I am not familiar with processing info from radio buttons or drop down lists.

What I would like to learn is to display in an e-mail the selection a person makes with either the radio button or the drop down list.

Here are the two forms I'm working with:

www.deronsizemore.com/quote.htm

www.deronsizemore.com/testdrive.htm

(Don't mind the styling on these, I didn't do it and I'm not messing with it...my job is to develop the php script to process the form)

I'm not really looking for hand out or anything, just a boost in the right direction. If someone has a good reference site or something that would be awesome!

Thanks,
Deron

[MikeBigg]

Deron,

in the code for one of those pages (ote the change of select to select_method):

<select name="select_method" size="1">     
  <option value="purchase-cash">Purchase - Cash</option>
  <option value="purchase-finance">Purchase - Finance</option>
  <option value="lease">Lease</option>
  <option value="undecided">Undecided</option>
</select> 

"select_method" will be passed to the script with one of the 4 values.

Does this help?

Mike

[RRWH]

the 2nd half of your question can be found by looking at the example at http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp

from that page,

<form>
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="male"> Male
<br>
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="female"> Female
</form>

if you echo $sex you will get back the value of the selected box (male or female in this example)

Od course, It is assumed that you use the appropriate $_GET['sex'] or $_POST['sex']

[deronsizemore]

Deron,

in the code for one of those pages (ote the change of select to select_method):

PHP Code:
<select name="select_method" size="1">
<option value="purchase-cash">Purchase - Cash</option>
<option value="purchase-finance">Purchase - Finance</option>
<option value="lease">Lease</option>
<option value="undecided">Undecided</option>
</select>

"select_method" will be passed to the script with one of the 4 values.

Does this help?

Mike

I will change that as you said. It doesn't really help me though I don't think. I'm more or less needing help with the php part of the code. The form html was given to me and I was asked to create something to process the form and have the info sent to an e-mail address. I'm familiar with processing just regular text fields, but not familiar with how to process drop down lists or the radio buttons with PHP. (Example with the test drive form: If their method of payment is "Lease" and the person selects "lease" from the drop down menu, what do I need to get the e-mail to show they selected "lease"? Same goes for the AM or PM with the radio buttons)

the 2nd half of your question can be found by looking at the example at http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp

from that page,

<form>
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="male"> Male
<br>
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="female"> Female
</form>

if you echo $sex you will get back the value of the selected box (male or female in this example)

Od course, It is assumed that you use the appropriate $_GET['sex'] or $_POST['sex']

Thanks RRWH. I understand what you're doing about half way. You lost me with "...appropriate $_GET['sex'] or $_POST['sex']" What is the difference in these two and where do I need to put them at?

I think its going to need to go somewhere here in the test drive form?:

<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" action="">

[RRWH]

<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" action="">

the method="post" is important to you on the processing end - this is where you would use the $_POST['name']; to read back the info that was put into the form.

To expand further for you on the dropdown list - you would use $_POST['select_method']; to get the actual value that was selected -

the $_POST['name'] is the name of the variable in the web form, regardless if it is a text field, radio button, checkbox, select list. the backend script really doesn't care about how the variable is populated - and that seems to be where you are getting stuck.

[philm]

As RRWH points out, your form handler script could look like this...

// Grab the values you just submitted via the form and assign to variables 
$year = $_GET["year"];
$make = $_GET["make"];
$colorExt = $_GET["colorExt"];
$paymentType = $_GET["paymentType"];
etc.... 

[deronsizemore]

<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" action="">

the method="post" is important to you on the processing end - this is where you would use the $_POST['name']; to read back the info that was put into the form.

To expand further for you on the dropdown list - you would use $_POST['select_method']; to get the actual value that was selected -

the $_POST['name'] is the name of the variable in the web form, regardless if it is a text field, radio button, checkbox, select list. the backend script really doesn't care about how the variable is populated - and that seems to be where you are getting stuck.

Okay...I think i'm starting to catch on with it. Only question I have no is where you've said to use $_POST['name'], Philm has wrote $_GET['name']?

What is the difference or is there any? Which should I use? I ask the same question to you as well Phlim if you get here before RRWH does...?

I'm going to attempt later today to put this script together, so I will probably return with more questions on "why is this not working?!" lol. (because I never pointed out before, but I know very very little php)

Thanks for the help guys...its really appreciated!

[MikeBigg]

$_POST contains variables that are sent to the server as a result of a post. Typically this would be a data from web form as in your current requirements.

The $_GET array is populated as a result of a GET reuest to the server. Typically this would be the parameters sent as part of the URL, every thing after the ? in the URL is parsed into the array.

Mike

[Fonant]

As a rule of thumb, try to use GET to access data and POST to modify data. A GET request can be bookmarked as all the required info is in the URL.