Where to put functions to be called into a form

PHP
1

Hi all,

Still very new to this and trying to find my feet. I received a comment the last time I posted that I should be looking into PDO, which I can now say that I have been looking into.

The tutorial that I followed was very basic (good for me) and had me put most of the code in the index.php page.

My question is, if I am going to add this code to a button on a form, where should I put this bit of php.

Should it be stored in another php document in order to keep the workflow tidy and if so how do I go about that in relation to calling it into the document when the user hits the submit button.

My only other experience with ā€˜codingā€™ was in Visual Basic where you would put this sort of information into a module that could be called when required.

The code that I have got currently on my index page is as follows.

<?php 
include 'connection.php';
 
try {
 
    $conec = new Connection();
    $con   = $conec->Open();
 
    $sql = "INSERT INTO `user`(`name`, `email`) VALUES (:name,:email)";
    $pre  = $con->prepare($sql, array(PDO::ATTR_CURSOR => PDO::CURSOR_FWDONLY));
 
    if($pre->execute(array(':name' => 'adam', ':email' => 'email@email.com'))){
        echo "Successful";
    }
} catch (PDOException $ex) {
    echo $ex->getMessage();
}
 ?>

I am aware that I wonā€™t be leaving the actual information that I intend to go into my database in this bit of code, it will be a field name.

Thanks for any help you guys have to offer.

Thanks Again

Adam

2

IMHO it isnā€™t so much about right or wrong ways, but more about personal preferences. Well, as long as youā€™re the only one that will ever be working with the code anyway.

I like to start with something like

<?php 
. 
?> 
<html> 
<head> 
<style> 
. 
</style> 
</head> 
<body> 
<script> 
. 
</script>

That is, I find it easier with everything in one file while Iā€™m making a lot of changes as opposed to switching back and forth between files.

But once things are ā€œdoneā€ (lol, if there is such a thing) I usually prefer to separate the code into other files as much as is easily possible and seems to make sense to me to do so.

A key, and something I like to think I have gotten better at over the years, is to be consistent, have good naming and leave comments when things might later become vague.

You look to have a handle on the naming, thatā€™s good.

One thing I would suggest is to not hesitate putting code inside functions. eg.
function insert_name_email($name, $email) {
Instead of including code inside of conditional structures. Then you can do something like

If ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') { 
insert_name_email($validated_name, $validated_email); 
}

Whether or not you want to ā€œmodularizeā€ your code is up to you. It is possible to have everything in one big file, I cut my teeth on Basic before it had a ā€œVā€ and I still tend to have a procedural mindset. This may be the reason I think of separating code as more for ease of reuse than I do for improved maintainility and have a kind of hybrid procedural-OOP way of file structure

1 Like
3

Thanks so much for this, really useful.

I am quite keen to learn about calling from other files as I feel it will be something that I will end up doing as its the way I am ā€œused toā€ from other languages and something that I would like to keep in this language, providing it is not a terrible idea.

If I was to move this to a functions.php file for example, how would I call it/run it from a button on a form.

Thanks again for your input Mitt, really appreciated.

Thanks

Adam

4

What I generally like to do with my setups is, I split parts of the page. If all pages contain the same exact navbar and footer, I would create a separate file for those. Then include these files in all the pages so that I donā€™t have to later edit every single page just to edit the footer or the navbar.

It is a lot easier for me to also have an editor that remembers opened files, this helps me find my way through files that I am currently working on. If a text editor doesnā€™t have this function, Iā€™d normally switch over.

5

Yes, I agree with you there.

I currently use sublime on the Mac which I think is great.

I have a header and footer that I ā€œrequireā€ in my pages (not included in the example above)

Thanks

Adam

6

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