php form display function

[William Gill]

I hope I can state this clearly enough.

I am redoing some of my html(php) forms. I'm trying to break things
into three functions on a self processing php page:
1) show the form (and populate fields if there were errors)
2) validate form data
3) process form data

2 and 3 are no problem, but 1 is. The page with the form displayed
should validate as html 4.01 strict (actually all iterations of the page
need to validate). The actual page is a mix of php and html (popping in
and out of php w/ '<?PHP' and '?>' as needed, so that I can see what
the page layout will be. To validate I have been serving page.php
saving it as page.html and validating that. I'm sure there is a better
way to do this.

To keep the code logic and markup 'separate' and easier to read, I have
been using include files of valid html (i.e. a div containing the
form,with my pop-in's of php, or a div containing the 'thank you, we'll
get back to you'). like this:

<?php
if (array_key_exis ts('_submit_che ck',$_POST)) {
if ($form_errors = validate_form() ) {
//the form has errors or was submitted by another source
show_form($form _errors);
} else {
// The submitted data is valid, so process it
process_form();
}
} else { // The form wasn't submitted, so display
include('./incForm.php');
}
?>

Is there a good way to show the form, any errors and re-populating all
the form fields? I thought about using session variables (seeding the
form and storing values until all errors have been resolved), but am not
sure that's the way to go.

[Kevin Audleman]

On Apr 7, 10:49 am, William Gill <nore...@exampl e.comwrote:

I hope I can state this clearly enough.

I am redoing some of my html(php) forms. I'm trying to break things
into three functions on a self processing php page:
1) show the form (and populate fields if there were errors)
2) validate form data
3) process form data

2 and 3 are no problem, but 1 is. The page with the form displayed
should validate as html 4.01 strict (actually all iterations of the page
need to validate). The actual page is a mix of php and html (popping in
and out of php w/ '<?PHP' and '?>' as needed, so that I can see what
the page layout will be. To validate I have been serving page.php
saving it as page.html and validating that. I'm sure there is a better
way to do this.

To keep the code logic and markup 'separate' and easier to read, I have
been using include files of valid html (i.e. a div containing the
form,with my pop-in's of php, or a div containing the 'thank you, we'll
get back to you'). like this:

<?php
if (array_key_exis ts('_submit_che ck',$_POST)) {
if ($form_errors = validate_form() ) {
//the form has errors or was submitted by another source
show_form($form _errors);
} else {
// The submitted data is valid, so process it
process_form();
}} else { // The form wasn't submitted, so display

include('./incForm.php');}

?>

Is there a good way to show the form, any errors and re-populating all
the form fields? I thought about using session variables (seeding the
form and storing values until all errors have been resolved), but am not
sure that's the way to go.

I would do two things
1. Write the form with a conditional statement next to each input (if
$error then display error message)
2. Write each element like <input type="text" id="fname" value="<?=
$_POST['fname'] />. The first time somebody comes to the form there
will be nothing in POST, so the form will be blank. Subsequent
attempts will carry forward the data they've already entered.