PHP Form Validation (working) Take me to Next Step?

PHP
1

I used this article on SitePoint as a reference ( https://www.sitepoint.com/form-validation-with-php ) and came up with the following. We are trying to move away from using jQuery for Form Validation since it can be turned off in the browser.

https://dd2test.com

But, now I need to send the data to our normal PHP script that sends the email, does further validation, formatting and submitting into a CRM etc. Basically, if all the rules were passed, send the values from the form to our script for further processing.

This is the PHP written at the top of the file, it could be a little redundant but works:

<?php
// define variables and set to empty values
$fname = $lname = $address = $city = $state = $zip = $phone = $email = "";
$fname_error = $lname_error = $address_error = $city_error = $state_error = $zip_error = $phone_error = $email_error = "";

if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {

	if (empty($_POST["fname"])) {
		$fname_error = "required";
	} else {
		$fname = test_input($_POST["fname"]);
		// check if name only contains letters and whitespace
		if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/",$fname)) {
			$fname_error = "Only letters and white space allowed";
		}
	}

	if (empty($_POST["lname"])) {
		$lname_error = "required";
	} else {
		$lname = test_input($_POST["lname"]);
		// check if name only contains letters and whitespace
		if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/",$lname)) {
			$lname_error = "Only letters and white space allowed";
		}
	}

	if (empty($_POST["address"])) {
		$address_error = "required";
	} else {
		$address = test_input($_POST["address"]);
	}

	if (empty($_POST["city"])) {
		$city_error = "required";
	} else {
		$city = test_input($_POST["city"]);
		// check if name only contains letters and whitespace
		if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/",$city)) {
			$city_error = "Only letters and white space allowed";
		}
	}

	if (empty($_POST["state"])) {
		$state_error = "required";
	} else {
		$state = test_input($_POST["state"]);
	}

	if (empty($_POST["zip"])) {
		$zip_error = "required";
	} else {
		$zip = test_input($_POST["zip"]);
		// check if name only contains letters and whitespace
		if (!preg_match("/^[0-9]*$/",$zip)) {
			$zip_error = "Only numbers allowed";
		}
	}

	if (empty($_POST["phone"])) {
		$phone_error = "required";
	} else {
		$phone = test_input($_POST["phone"]);
	}

	if (empty($_POST["email"])) {
		$email_error = "required";
	} else {
		$email = test_input($_POST["email"]);
		// check if e-mail address is well-formed
		if (!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
			$email_error = "Invalid email format";
		}
	}

}

function test_input($data) {
	$data = trim($data);
	$data = stripslashes($data);
	$data = htmlspecialchars($data);
	return $data;
}
?>

The form is using:

<form method="post" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);?>">

I am a beginner with PHP and struggling to take what I have and submit the data into an external script for processing.

2

And how should we know how you did it before? Why don’t you implement the check wthin the “external script”? Why don’t you just follow the path to the function like before? The browser just makes HTTP requests. You can emulate that with CURL.

3

You’ve already done that within your <form> tag, and you’ve chosen to bring it back into the same file. Your choice now is either to add the code into that same file to do your validation checks, send the email and update the CRM which would be relatively easily, or to call another external script either by using Ajax (if the customer has JavaScript enabled) or using something like CURL which allows you to post to another script somewhere on the same or a different server, which is slightly more complex.

Wouldn’t it be easier to change your form tag to point to the external script as mentioned above? If it needs additional validation, then add it into there. It doesn’t make sense to me to add another level of validation - you still have the form submission and the screen re-draw if you are unwilling or unable to use Ajax for whatever reason.

4

Thank you for the reply and info. I will try to implement it into our normal script then. Once I have it working as needed it will need to be used many web sites that we have. It was thought that it might work better if I didn’t have to update each of those scripts and instead just put the php near the form for each site and adjust as needed for each one. Forms can be different for each.

5

I will try to implement it into our normal script instead. It would eventually be used on many websites. Could be over 100 and each would be a little different as the form goes.

6

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