Introduction to Forms

Using HTML Forms with PHP

Forms are a very valuable way to gather information and input from users. They are used for ordering goods, creating accounts, leaving off comments, and numerous other tasks.

We have seen how we can use JavaScript to validate and control user input from a form on a page. Now we are going to look at how server-side forms work.

Note: add ".txt" to the end of each of the following to see the source code.

A walk through developing a PHP-based comment-submission form

• run form setup page
  purpose: see how to set up a form with PHP
• run form echo page
  purpose: echo back data gathered by form to verify PHP working correctly
• run form with logic page
  purpose: see how to add logic to the PHP
• view globals (PHP wrapped around HTML)
  purpose: see global variables available (version 1)
• view globals (HTML wrapped around PHP)
  purpose: see global variables available (version 2)
• view globals (better HTML wrapped around PHP)
  purpose: see global variables available (version 3)
• run echo-comment code
  purpose: see use of other form elements
• run submit-comment code
  view comments file
  purpose: see use of file to store data

Testing the PHP Email Facility on this Server

[ enabled ]

When a systems administrator installs PHP, they make some choices about security. Some of those choices have implications for the built-in PHP mail() function. Think about how you could have comments sent as mail to a central address instead of saving them to a file.

Try it out