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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-29T15:11:57+00:00

EDIT: Mangling is fixed – primary issue appears to be the php/mysql connection In

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EDIT: Mangling is fixed – primary issue appears to be the php/mysql connection

In an attempt to learn how to use a MySQL db on a webpage, I’m following a basic tutorial for connecting to a MySQL instance via PHP (all managed through WAMP2)

The tutorial: http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql/4 uses a PHP_SELF method (that I understand is now depreciated).

I’ve tried a few other suggestions that I’ve found doted around, but I can’t find resolution to the following error I see in the apache log:

(20024)The given path is misformatted or contained invalid characters: Cannot map POST /%3C$SEARCH.PHP%3E HTTP/1.1 to file, referer: http://localhost/search.php

This error prevents the HTML page from being returned, and I get a 403 error in my browser

It appears that this line of HTML/PHP is the culprit:

<form name="search" method="post" action="<?=$PHP_SELF?>">

I have seen suggestions that say to either turn on short_open_tag (a bad idea according to some), change the 

<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">

I can’t get any of these methods to work, and wondered if anyone could let me know what dumb thing I’ve missed this time…

The whole php file I am using is:

<?php 
// // This is only displayed if they have submitted the form 
 if ($searching =="yes") 
 { 
 echo "<h2>Results</h2><p>"; 

 //If they did not enter a search term we give them an error 
 if ($find == "") 
 { 
 echo "<p>You forgot to enter a search term"; 
 exit; 
 } 

 include("dbinfo.php");
 mysql_connect($host,$username,$password);
 mysql_select_db("database") or die(mysql_error()); 

 // We preform a bit of filtering 
 $find = strtoupper($find); 
 $find = strip_tags($find); 
 $find = trim ($find); 

 //Now we search for our search term, in the field the user specified 
 $data = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM main WHERE upper($field) LIKE'%$find%'"); 

 //And we display the results 
 while($result = mysql_fetch_array( $data )) 
 { 
 echo $result['Item1']; 
 echo " "; 
 echo $result['Item2']; 
 echo "<br>"; 
 echo "<br>"; 
 } 

 //This counts the number or results - and if there wasn't any it gives them a little  message explaining that 
 $anymatches=mysql_num_rows($data); 
 if ($anymatches == 0) 
 { 
 echo "Sorry, but we can not find an entry to match your query<br><br>"; 
 } 

 //And we remind them what they searched for 
 echo "<b>Searched For:</b> " .$find; 
 } 
 ?> 


 <h2>Search</h2> 
 <form name="search" method="post" action="<?=$PHP_SELF?>">
 Seach for: <input type="text" name="find" /> in 
 <Select NAME="field">
 <Option VALUE="item1">Item1</option>
 <Option VALUE="item2">Item2</option>
 </Select>
 <input type="hidden" name="searching" value="yes" />
 <input type="submit" name="search" value="Search" />
 </form>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Avoid shortags, they are out of date, make sure to be using:

    <form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">

    What does the form’s html look like when you load the page?

    EDIT:
    After reviewing my answer I’d like to rephrase it a bit, as they are not “out of date” per say, but they generally do cause problems (for those that don’t know how to set up php fully), so for beginners I’d suggest avoiding them.

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