[RESOLVED] PHP Form Validation

[thewebportfolio]

Hello,

I am creating a form where users sign up to be a member of my website.

Currently the validation I'm trying to use is in Javascript, although i want it in PHP.

Could anyone please help me in creating a validation on the field named 'firstname'.

my form:

<form name="registerform" id="registerform" method="post" action="signupprocess.php"> 

I need the validation to check if the field 'firstname' in form 'registerform' is populated, if not return an error message.

Many Thanks

[StevenMaloney]

I think this may be able to help. I created my own validation javascript that will check the element for a value and if not it prints a box behind it saying there was an error. It also works for validating emails.

What you would need to do to make it work is include and id and onblur to your input element that you would like validated. For instance if you have an input named firstname you would change the input to:

<input type="text" name="firstname" id="firstname" onblur="validate('firstname')"/>

Link to javascript:
http://stevenmaloney.info/scripts/validation.js

If you want to see it in action check out my free quote form. http://stevenmaloney.info/quote.php

PS. A safe HTML method would be to add required to the end of your element but doesn't always work.

[thewebportfolio]

also my input field is

<input id="firstname" class="formfield" name="firstname" type="text" size="30"/>

[PsyNor]

I would suggest you look in to PHP's empty() and isset() functions, but make sure that you understand the range of empty() before you use it, to make that's what you want.

Alternatively you can use something like

if (($firstname == '') || ($lastname = '')) { /* return error */ } 

[thewebportfolio]

Thank you, how would i call this from the form like onsubmit?

Many Thanks

[PsyNor]

Well I guess you could do it in the onsubmit and do a ajax request, or you could let it enter the server side file called in the action attribute. If the validation fails there it'd redirect you back to the form.

[thewebportfolio]

If i was to use it as server side action would it not reset the form on redirect back, also my form is in a popup box not a page. Hope this makes sense + thank you for the support

[PsyNor]

You can store the data in the session to fill out the form with the correctly entered data. But if it's in a pop up I would maybe suggest that you go with ajax.

Is it a jQuery popup?

[thewebportfolio]

Thank you, what would i use for validation could you please show me an example + the popup is all JavaScript that opens a PHP file. below i have showed the on click function, this opens popupsignup.php and requires a .js file which i also have created.

javascript:signup.box.show({url:'signup/popupsignup.php',width:600,height:500,openjs:'opSignUpReg',opacity:30})

Many Thanks

[PsyNor]

Ahh so it's a new window? Well then you can use the first method I suggested

<form name="signup" method="post" action="">
Firstname: <input type="text" name="firstname" value="<?php print (!isset($_POST['firstname'])) ? '' : $_POST['firstname']; ?>" /><br />
Lastname: <input type="text" name="lastname" value="<?php print (!isset($_POST['lastname'])) ? '' : $_POST['lastname']; ?>" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Sign up" />

add the following to the top of the same file

<?php
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
$fistname = trim($_POST['fistname']);
$lastname = trim($_POST['lastname']);
  if ((!isset($firstname, $lastname)) || ($firstname == '') || ($lastname == '')) {
    print 'You must fill out both firstname and username';
  } else {
    // Filter all user inputs here and save to the database
  }
}
?>

This was just a quick writeup without testing, so please expect that there might be some errors in it

[thewebportfolio]

when i try adding a 'value' to the form, it populates the text box, is their another option? Many Thanks for your help

[PsyNor]

what u mean??

[thewebportfolio]

<input style="margin:0 0 5px 0; font-size:16px; color:#09F;" id="firstname" class="formfield" name="firstname" type="text" size="30" value="<?php print (!isset($_POST['firstname'])) ? '' : $_POST['firstname']; ?>"/>

<?php print (!isset($_POST['firstname'])) ? '' : $_POST['firstname']; ?>

appears in the text box

[PsyNor]

you are sure you're working in a .php file right?

[thewebportfolio]

100% sure