How can I populate and display the $errors variable only after the form is submitted and there is an error?
<form method="post" action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">
<?php
if(!is_null($errors)) {
echo "<h3>$errors</h3>";
}
?>
<label for="Name">Name</label><em>(Required)</em>
<input type="text" name="Name"/>
<label for="Email">Email</label><em>(Required)</em>
<input type="text" name="Email"/>
<label for="Website">Website</label>
<input type="text" name="Website"/>
<label for="Message">Message</label><em>(Required)</em>
<textarea name="Message"></textarea>
<button id="submit" type="submit" value="submit"name="submit">Submit</button>
<input type="hidden" name="Submit" />
</form>
and my script to handle the form
$errors = null;
if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
if(!empty($_POST['Name']) && !empty($_POST['Email']) && !empty($_POST['Message'])) {
$name = $_POST['Name'];
$email = $_POST['Email'];
$website = $_POST['Website'];
$message = $_POST['Message'];
//strip any html tags and slashes off of the fields
$nameClean = strip_tags($name);
$emailClean = strip_tags($email);
$websiteClean = strip_tags($website);
$messageClean = strip_tags($message);
$messageCleanAndStripped = stripslashes($messageClean);
}
} else {
$errors = "Please fill in the required fields";
}
$errors will be displayed even when you load the page for the first time, because that’s what your code does:
It means if the user loads the page the first time, he hasn’t posted anything, so isset($_POST[‘submit’]) is false, then you assign an error message to the $errors variable. You should change your code to this:
Just insert the else statement inside the condition, so you’ll be checking for errors only when the user actually submitted something.
Hope it helps.