Question

I have the following form:

<form action="?" method="post" name="contactform">
<?php if(@$errorsAndNotices):?>
<div class="error">
<p><?php echo @$errorsAndNotices; ?></p>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

<div class="question">
<p><span><input type="radio" name="answer" value="Yes"/></span> Yes</p>
</div>
<div id="one" class="answers" style="display:none">
<p><input type="radio" name="answerdetail" value="Reason One" /> Reason One</p>
<p><input type="radio" name="answerdetail" value="Reason Two" /> Reason Two</p>
</div><!-- end answers -->

<div class="question">
<p><span><input type="radio" name="answer" value="No"/></span> No</p>
</div>
<div id="two" class="answers" style="display:none">
<p><input type="radio" name="answerdetail" value="Reason One" /> Reason One</p>
<p><input type="radio" name="answerdetail" value="Reason Two" /> Reason Two</p>
</div><!-- end answers -->

<div class="question">
<p><span><input type="radio" name="answer" value="Not sure" /></span> Not sure</p>
</div>
<div id="three" class="answers" style="display:none">
<p>No problem, we’ll drop you an email next week.</p>
</div>

<input type="submit" value="" class="submit" />
</form>

If one of either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ are selected then the sub radio buttons show and you can then select one of them.

I have the following simple validation:

orsAndNotices = '';
 if(!@$_REQUEST['answer'])                      { $errorsAndNotices .= "Please select Yes, No or Not sure.<br/>\n"; $nameFail = 1; }
 if(!@$_REQUEST['answerdetail'])                { $errorsAndNotices .= "Please select your answer.<br/>\n"; $emailFail = 1; }

If nothing is selected, I get an error notice as I want.

If ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is selected, but none of the sub radio buttons are selected, I get an error notice, again as I want.

The problem is when ‘Not Sure’ is selected, I get an error notice because none of the sub radion buttons are selected. I don’t want this error.

I only want an error notice if ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ have been selected and then none of their sub radio buttons have been selected. If not sure is selected, I want the form to submit without any errors.

I hope I’ve explained this ok!

Any help would be great.

Answer 1

I would check the Not Sure radio button before the others and set it in a flag to use in all of your other conditions:

$notSure = (!empty($_REQUEST['answer']) && ($_REQUEST['answer'] == 'Not sure'));

The you can use it with:

if (!$notSure && !@$_REQUEST['answerdetail']) ...

Side Note (not answer-specific)
Using the @ for error suppression can cause your code to run sluggish. For simple tasks as checking if a $_REQUEST value is set, I would recommend using isset() or empty() instead, such as:

if (!$notSure && empty($_REQUEST['answerdetail'])) ...