Question

I have a contact form and I handle errors by checking each field one-by-one with an “if” statement. I find this hard and I can’t seem to find a better/more productive way to get them working. I would also like a heading saying “Error” if one (or more) is true. But I cant get them to work with the separate “if” statements.

Here is my code:

$name = $_POST['name']; //get data from the form
$email = $_POST['email'];//get data from the form
$message = $_POST['message'];//get data from the form
if($name == ""){
echo"<p class='error'>Please enter a name.</p>";
}
if (!eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,3})$",$email)){
echo "<p class='error'>Your email address is not valid.</p>"; 
}
if($message == ""){
echo"<p class='error'>Please enter a message.</p>";
}
else{
echo"all ok, send email code...";   
}

Edit: These errors are for the validation of the form.

Answer 1

But I cant get them to work with the separate “if” statements.

Just store error in a variable

$error = array();

if($name == ""){
  $error[] = "Please enter a name.";
}
if (!eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,3})$",$email)){
  $error[] = "Your email address is not valid."; 
}
if($message == ""){
 $error[] = "Please enter a message.";
}

if (!$error) {
  // do not echo anything here
  // but send an email
  // and use header("Location:") to redirect a user to thanks page
} else {
  echo "Error";
  foreach ($error as $line) {
    echo "<p class='error'>$line</p>";
  }
}