Question

The form below can contains different elements of text fields, drop down and selection boxes, which allows the user to update his profile. The process of updating MySQL fields is being done after form submits.

<form method="post">
My Name: <input name="myname" type="text" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['SESS_MY_NAME']; ?>" /><br />
My Email: <input name="email" type="text" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['SESS_EMAIL']; ?>" /><br />
    <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Update" />

<?php
if (isset($_POST['Submit'])) {
    // MySQL update
    ;
    ;
    ;
    $result=mysql_query($sql);
  }

// if successfully updated, make form refresh. 
  if($result){
    ;
    ;
    ;
  }
?> 
</form>

I want to refresh only the form, so that the user will stay in the same page and will see the changes that he made (i.e. What do I need to put under the comment in the code “if successfully updated, make form refresh”?).

I cannot use header("location: samepage.php"); because I have too many HTML codes involved in between and before.

Appreciate any help,

Answer 1

Move the isset($_POST['submit']) check to the top.

Your current (intended) process is as follows:

1. Retrieve form data from DB/Session/etc.
2. Display as HTML
3. User submits form
4. Repeat steps 1/2
5. Write data to DB
6. Force refresh
7. Repeat 1/2 again

If you move this check to the top, the process is changed to:

1. Retrieve form data from DB
2. Display as HTML
3. User submits form
4. Write data to DB
5. Repeat 1/2 (it will now retrieve the updated information and display correctly).

This is the absolute simplest way you can do it. It doesn’t take into account Post/Redirect/Get or updating the session so multiple DB reads are unncessary, etc.