0301501 FCAIT

Website BCA
Development using
PHP & MySQL
 PHP Forms

-Prof. Nirav Suthar

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 What is Form?
●
Forms are used to get input from the
user and submit it to the web server for
processing.
●
The diagram below illustrates the form
handling process.

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 When & Why From?
●
Forms come in handy when developing flexible and
dynamic applications that accept user input.
●
Forms can be used to edit already existing data
from the database
●
Following things are required to create a
form:
– Opening and closing form tags <form>…</form>
– Form submission type POST or GET
– Submission URL that will process the submitted data
– Input fields such as input boxes, text areas,
buttons,checkboxes etc.

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 Submitting data to Server
●
The action attribute of the form specifies the
submission URL that processes the data.
●
The method attribute specifies the
submission type.
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Following are the Methods for submitting
data to server:
– GET
– POST
– REQUEST

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 Submitting data to Server
●
There are two ways the browser client can send information to the
web server.
– The GET Method
– The POST Method

●
Before the browser sends the information, it encodes it using a
scheme called URL encoding.In this scheme, name/value pairs are
joined with equal signs and different pairs are separated by the
ampersand.
●
name1=value1&name2=value2&name3=value3
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Spaces are removed and replaced with the + character and any
other nonalphanumeric characters are replaced with a hexadecimal
values.
●
After the information is encoded it is sent to the server.

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 PHP Superglobal Variables
Several predefined variables in PHP are "superglobals", which
means that they are always accessible, regardless of scope - and
you can access them from any function, class or file without having
to do anything special.
●
$GLOBALS
●
$_SERVER
●
$_REQUEST
●
$_POST
●
$_GET
●
$_FILES
●
$_COOKIE
●
$_SESSION

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 PHP $GLOBALS
●
$GLOBALS is a PHP super global variable
which is used to access global variables
from anywhere in the PHP script (also
from within functions or methods).
●
PHP stores all global variables in an
array called $GLOBALS[index].
●
The index holds the name of the
variable.

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 PHP $SERVER
●
$_SERVER is a PHP super global variable
which holds information about headers,
paths, and script locations.

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 PHP $SERVER
$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']
$_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR']
$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']
$_SERVER['SERVER_PORT']
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']
Returns the filename of the
currently executing script
Returns the IP address of the
host server
Returns the name of the host
server
Returns the absolute pathname
of the currently executing script
Returns the port on the server
machine being used by the web
server for communication (such
as 80)
Returns the path of the current
script
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 PHP _POST Method
●
The POST method transfers
information via HTTP headers.
●
The information is encoded as
described in case of GET method and
put into a header called QUERY_STRING.
●
The array variable can be accessed from
any script in the program; it has a global
scope.

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 _POST Syntax
●
Syntax
<?php
$_POST['variable_name'];
?>

“$_POST[…]” is the PHP array

●
“'variable_name'” is the URL variable
name.

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●
The POST method does not have any restriction on
data size to be sent.
●
The POST method can be used to send ASCII as well
as binary data.
●
The data sent by POST method goes through HTTP
header so security depend s on HTTP protocol.
●
By using Secure HTTP (https you can make sure that
your information is secure.
●
The PHP provides $_POST associative array to
access all the sent information using GET method.

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14
 _GET Method
●
The GET method sends the encoded
user information appended to the
page request.
●
The page and the encoded information
are separated by the ? Character.
●
The array variable can be accessed from
any script in the program; it has a global
scope.

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 Syntax
●
Syntax
<?php
$_GET['variable_name'];
?>

“$_GET[…]” is the PHP array

●
“'variable_name'” is the URL variable
name.

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●
The GET method produces a long string that appears in
your server logs, in the browser's Location: box.
●
The GET method is restricted to send upto 1024 characters
only.
●
Never use GET method if you have password or other
sensitive information to be sent to the server.
●
GET can't be used to send binary data, like images or word
documents, to the server.
●
The data sent by GET method can be accessed using
QUERY_STRING environment variable.
●
The PHP provides $_GET associative array to access all
the sent information using GET method.

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18
_GET vs _POST

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 REQUEST MEthod
●
The PHP $_REQUEST variable contains the
contents of both $_GET, $_POST, and
$_COOKIE.
●
The PHP $_REQUEST variable can be used to
get the result from form data sent with both
the GET and POST methods.
●
Here $_PHP_SELF variable contains the name
of self script in which it is being called.
●
$_REQUEST — HTTP Request variables.

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 Form Input
Attribute Values

Value Description

button Defines a clickable button (mostly used with a JavaScript to

activate a script)

checkbox Defines a checkbox

color Defines a color picker

date Defines a date control (year, month and day (no time))

datetime- Defines a date and time control (year, month, day, hour,
local minute, second, and fraction of a second (no time zone)

email Defines a field for an e-mail address

file Defines a file-select field and a "Browse..." button (for file

uploads)

hidden Defines a hidden input field

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image Defines an image as the submit button
Attribute Values

Description
Value

range Defines a control for entering a number whose exact value is not
important (like a slider control). Default range is from 0 to 100

reset Defines a reset button (resets all form values to default values)

search Defines a text field for entering a search string

submit Defines a submit button

tel Defines a field for entering a telephone number

text Default. Defines a single-line text field (default width is 20

characters)

time Defines a control for entering a time (no time zone)

url Defines a field for entering a URL

week Defines a week and year control (no time zone)

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 isset()
●
The isset () function is used to check
whether a variable is set or not.
●
The isset() function return false if
testing variable contains a NULL value.

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