GOAL: Trying to make sure none of the fields are left blank including the radio button set and the dropdown. Anyone?
HTML
<form action="add_p_c.php" method="post">
Professor<input type="radio" name="addType" /> Course<input type="radio" name="addType" />
<br><br>Name: <input type="text" name="name" /><br>
Department: <select name="deptName"><option>Department 1</option> <option>Department 2</option></select>
Email: <input type="text" name="email" /><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" />
</form>
**PHP (add_p_c.php) **
<?php
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
if (empty($selected_radio)){ echo "You need to select a prof or course";} else(return;)
$selected_radio = $_POST['addType'];
if (empty($course_prof_name)){ echo "You need to enter a name";} else(return;)
$course_prof_name = $_POST['name'];
if (empty($select_dep)){ echo "You select a dept";} else(return;)
$select_dep = $_POST['deptName'];
$email = $_POST['email'] = "myemail@email.com";
if(eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,3})$", $email)) {
return;
}
else {
echo "<span color='red;'>Invalid email address.</span>";
}
}
?>
For the sake of safety, you should add in certain things to improve security, because if you do any queries to a DB, you could get an SQL injection. Try this:
<?php
if(isset($_POST['submit']){
$_POST['name']= trim(strip_tags(addslashes($string)));
$_POST['deptName']= trim(strip_tags(addslashes($string)));
$_POST['email']= trim(strip_tags(addslashes($string)));
/* I can't remember if it should be '' or NULL, but some simple testing will let you know which it is*/
if($_POST['addType'] != ''){
if($_POST['name'] != ''){
if($_POST['deptName'] != ''){
if($_POST['email']) != ''){
$selected_radio = $_POST['addType'];
$course_prof_name = $_POST['name'];
$select_dep = $_POST['deptName'];
$email = $_POST['email'] = "myemail@email.com";
if(eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,3})$", $email)) {
return;
}
else {
echo "<span color='red;'>Invalid email address.</span>";
}
}
else{
// email wasn't set
}
}
else{
//deptName wasn't set
}
}
else{
//name wasn't set
}
}
else{
// add type wasn't set
}
}
?>
You can use if (empty($variable)) {, just keep in mind that anything that evaluates to false, including the number 0 will be caught.
Just check it literally:
if($_POST['foo'] === ""){
If you're going to have a particularly large form you may want to look at using arrays and a for loop. When I've built 30 field arrays, nesting a series of if statements gets very ungainly, very quickly.
I'd recommend writing a quick function like
function validatePost($checkValues)
{
foreach($checkValues as $value)
{
$checked = 0;
foreach($_POST as $key => $value)
{
if($key == $checkValues)
{
$checked = 1;
if(empty($value))
{
return false;
}
}
}
if($checked == 0)
{
return false;
}
}
}
Keep in mind this doesn't include any regex checking, but you can add that in the middle foreach loop. Then in line in your code you would call that function like:
$checkValues = array('addType', 'deptName', 'email', 'name')
$return = validatePost($checkValues);
if($return == false)
{
echo "<span color='red;'>Please fill out entire form.</span>"
}
else
{
return;
}
Obviously you can add functionality to make it more verbose, but that's a very basic validation for you that's scalable.