Please Help PHP Problem Submitting Form

Report · Oct 01, 2011

Hi there,

I am a complete web design novice, but am trying to finish off a site for my small video production business.

I am using Dreamweaver CS3 and been following tutorials up to this point, but am stuck on the last part which is submitting a form. After following a tutorial, I got the submit button to work (send a message to my e-mail), however all the field are blank as opposed to having text within their fields. I have put below the script both of my form, and of my PHP document:

Form:

<div>

</div></div>

<div class="wrapper"><div class="bg2"><textarea name="questions" cols="1" rows="1" id="questions" onFocus="if(this.value =='Questions/Comments' ) this.value=''" onBlur="if(this.value=='') this.value='Questions/Comments'" >Questions/Comments</textarea></div></div>

<tr>

</tr>

</table>

</div>

</form>

PHP DOC:

<?php

/* Email test */

$emailSubject = 'Crazy PHP Scripting!';

$webMaster = 'info@dcmcvideography.ca';

/* Gathering Data Variables */

$NameField = $_POST['Name'];

$emailField = $_POST['email'];

$questionsField = $_POST['questions'];

$body = <<<EOD

Name: $Name <br>

Email: $email <br>

Questions: $questions <br>

EOD;

$headers = "From: $email\r\n";

$headers .= "Content-type: text/html\r\n";

$success = mail($webMaster, $emailSubject, $body, $headers);

/* Results rendered as HTML */

$theResults = <<<EOD

<head>

<title>Untitled Document</title>

</head>

<body>Hello Thanks

</body>

</html>

EOD;

echo "$theResults";

?>

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Report · Oct 01, 2011

You aren't using the correct variable names!

Try this -

Name: $NameField <br>

Email: $emailField <br>

Questions: $questionsField <br>

EOD;

By the way, sending emails out without trying to remove 'bad characters' is not a good idea. At the least, you should do something like -

$NameField = stripslashes(strip_tags($_POST['Name']));

$emailField = stripslashes(strip_tags($_POST['email']));

$questionsField = stripslashes(strip_tags($_POST['questions']));

It wouldn't hurt to use a regex to test whether the email format is correct also. Here's an example -

// check for valid email address

$pattern = '/^[^@]+@[^\s\r\n\'";,@%]+$/';

if (!preg_match($pattern, trim($emailField))) {

$error['email'] = 'Please enter a valid email address';

}

Report · Oct 01, 2011

Thank you for all your help!

I still can't seem to get it to work though... The primary script you gave me,

Name: $NameField <br>

Email: $emailField <br>

Questions: $questionsField <br>

EOD;

I believe is the exact same as what I already had in my PHP document, or am I suppose to put it somewhere else? (again sorry I am a complete novice).

Also on a side note, do you know the script I have to change to make the page that appears after the submit button is clicked, appear in the same tab as opposed to opening a new tab? Thanks!

Aaron