losing form data

[digihoo]

i am validating form data, but when i redirect the user back to the
form page to correct the errors, all of the data they entered has
disappeared.

Please Help.

Thanks

[Pedro]

digihoo wrote:

i am validating form data, but when i redirect the user back to the
form page to correct the errors, all of the data they entered has
disappeared.

The browser only displays what you send.
If you want to send the same data a user submitted, you have to save it
between the form processing script and the script that outputs that
form. I'd do that with session variables:

<?php // form processing script
session_start();
if (isset($_POST['userdata']) {
validate_data($_POST); // define according to your needs
$_SESSION['userdata'] = $_POST['userdata'];
}
header('Location: form_output.php');
exit('Redirected <a href="form_output.php">here</a>.');
?>

and

<?php // form output script
session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION['userdata']) {
$useradata = $_SESSION['userdata'];
} else {
$userdata = ''; // or some other default value
}
?>
<form method="post" action="form_process.php">
<input type="text" name="userdata" value="<?php echo $userdata; ?>" />
<input type="submit">
</form>

Happy Coding :-)

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[digihoo]

i should have been more specific here. the form also loses its data if
the user just clicks the back button - without actually submitting the
data.

when they click forward to the form again, the data is also gone.

i was told that this is caused by a bug in IE 6, and to put:

header("Cache-control: private");

in the code before any HTML. however, this didn't solve the problem.

is there a way to prevent form data from disappearing, whether or not
it has been submitted into post variables?

Thanks