is there a way to use "$_POST" when page loads vs when it's "sent?"

[fxpepper]

is there a way to use POST when page loads vs when it is "sent" through submit button? Actually I know there is but I can't figure this out at this time Tried looking up online too but not sure I am using the right qualifiers to find this...

bascially I have a form page which uses an external page to display some of it's php so I want it to be POSTing to this page before the form is completed and sent through again through the server

does this make any sense?

[criterion9]

$_POST is only ever set when the method is "post" you could use "$_GET" instead and append variables in pairs to the query string such as "index.php?id=34&happy=true" used as $_GET['id'] and $_GET['happy'] in the script. As for the rest of your post are you talking about using AJAX or something? (I'm having trouble understanding what you are trying to do).

[fxpepper]

sorry I know my message wasn't very clear. I am new to all this so not sure exactly what I am doing or what things are called...

but anyway, I figured it out. When I did <a href="PagerServer.php?registration.php">Register</a> it sent the pagename (registration) to PageServer and then was working together at that point.

Again sorry for the vagueness but i appreciate your replies : )

[Mindzai]

The correct syntax is:

<a href="somescript.php?foo=hello&bar=42">ClickMe</a>

You have the script you want to send data to, then a question mark, then a series of key/value pairs, with the value name on the left of the equals sign, and the value itself on the right. These pairs are separated by the ampersand (&) character.

So the above example is sending the value called foo ('hello') and the value called bar (42) to the script somescript.php.

Then in somescript.php, the data is accessible via the $_GET superglobal:

echo $_GET['foo']; // outputs 'hello'
echo $_GET['bar']; // outputs '42'