Question

I am stumped by the following code:

 <b><i>First name *</b></i> : <input type="text" 
                     name='<?php Labels::$FIRSTNAMELABEL ?>'  /><br />

This ‘First Name’ field is one of several inputs on a form on my page.
The Labels:$FIRSTNAMELABEL is set in the class definition to “FirstName”.

Here is the class definition:

class Labels {
      static public $FIRSTNAMELABEL = "FirstName";
      // other static class members here for last name, phone #, etc.
      }

When the form appears in my browser I dump the page source and here’s what I get:

<form action="AddPerson.php" method="post">
<b><i>First name *</b></i> : <input type="text" 
                     name=''  /><br />

You will notice that name=’ ‘ is blank. It should say name=”FirstName” there in the page source. Not be blank.

I have tried: single quotes, double quotes, spaces, no spaces around the php block, and inside the php block around the Labels::$FIRSTNAMELABEL — no change. When the form is displayed and I dump the page source, I always get name= (blank).

I discovered this with the following line of code:

  if( isset( $_POST[Labels::$FIRSTNAMELABEL])

The ‘isset’ always returns false, so I did a page dump and found out why — when the form is submitted there IS no first name field called “FirstName” at all.

Funny thing about this is, I had this form inside a heredoc and it worked fine — here’s part of the form in my heredoc:

 <?php
  // this was successfully displaying a 'name=' field on the form set to the 
  // static class label called Labels::$FIRSTNAMELABEL -- ie. the 'name' field 
  // in the page source was name="FirstName"
 function showAddContactForm()
 {
     $firstNameLabel = Labels::$FIRSTNAMELABEL;
     // other field names not shown.....

     echo <<<_END
       <form action="AddContact.php" method="post">
       <b><i>First name *</b></i> : <input type="text" name=$firstNameLabel /><br />
      // other fields on the form not shown..
      </form>
 _END;
 }
 ?>

Why is my ‘name=’ field always blank?

Answer 1

At a glance, there is no echo/print.

<b><i>First name *</b></i> : <input type="text" 
name='<?php echo Labels::$FIRSTNAMELABEL ?>'  /><br />