Forms and form processing.

[Viken Karaguesian]

Hello all,

Right now, I'm kind of oblivious as to how forms get processed, but I'l like
to be enlightened. Right now, All the websites I run use the FrontPage
extensions. I assume these extensions do things like form submission, guest
book maintenace, hit counter counts, etc. All my sites are manually coded,
but I do use the built-in guest book, built-in hit counter, and forms.

Right now, when someone submits a form, I get an e-mail from my webhost with
all the form information in it. The e-mail body looks like this:

Name: Joe
E-Mail: na**@isp.com
Address: 123 Main Street
Address 2:
City: Anytown
State: Any State
ZIP: 123456
Country: Any Country
B1: Submit

If I was to get rid of the FrontPage extensions and do the form submission
the "standard" way, how would I go about doing it? Would it be with PHP?
CGI? Would I have to do the scripting myself, or would my web-host have
these scripts available as "plug-ins" of some sort.

I don't really know what the difference between these server side scripting
languages are, so this may be a more complicated question than I realize.
The more I know, the more I *want* to know :>)

Thanks in advance for all your advice.
--

Viken K.
http://home.comcast.net/~vikenk

[David Dorward]

Viken Karaguesian wrote:

If I was to get rid of the FrontPage extensions and do the form submission
the "standard" way, how would I go about doing it? Would it be with PHP?
CGI?
Either. Or JSP, ASP, etc, etc. Different hosts offer different options.
Would I have to do the scripting myself, or would my web-host have
these scripts available as "plug-ins" of some sort.
If the host has scripts available, they will be as "scripts" :).

There are three possibilities.

1. You use a script provided by your host
2. You use a script written by you (or for you)
3. You get a license (often free) for a third party script (like NMS
Formmail).
I don't really know what the difference between these server side
scripting languages are

They all do much the same things, they just have different syntax for doing
it.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

[Viken Karaguesian]

> 1. You use a script provided by your host

2. You use a script written by you (or for you)
3. You get a license (often free) for a third party script (like NMS
Formmail).

Thanks for replying. So if I understand you right, the implementation
method would be:

1. I find out which folder my host keeps the form submission script in.
2. When creating the form, I would use something like: <FORM
action="path to PHP script" method="post">
3. When the form is submitted it get's e-mailed to me by my webhost.

Am I on the right path?

Viken K.

[David Dorward]

Viken Karaguesian wrote:

iif I understand you right, the implementation
method would be: 1. I find out which folder my host keeps the form submission script in.
Assuming it exists.
2. When creating the form, I would use something like: <FORM
action="path to PHP script" method="post">
Yes, but they may introduce additional requirements, they should
provide documentation for you.
3. When the form is submitted it get's e-mailed to me by my webhost.

Generally speaking, yes.