- PHP Forms — Required Fields
- PHP — Required Fields
- PHP — Display The Error Messages
- Example
- PHP Form Validation
- Various Form Validation in PHP
- Text Fields of the PHP FORM
- Radio Button Fields/Elements
- HTML FORM element
- Select List Field & Submit Button Field
- Validating the PHP FORM contents
- Conclusion
- Recommended Articles
PHP Forms — Required Fields
This chapter shows how to make input fields required and create error messages if needed.
PHP — Required Fields
From the validation rules table on the previous page, we see that the «Name», «E-mail», and «Gender» fields are required. These fields cannot be empty and must be filled out in the HTML form.
Field | Validation Rules |
---|---|
Name | Required. + Must only contain letters and whitespace |
Required. + Must contain a valid email address (with @ and .) | |
Website | Optional. If present, it must contain a valid URL |
Comment | Optional. Multi-line input field (textarea) |
Gender | Required. Must select one |
In the previous chapter, all input fields were optional.
In the following code we have added some new variables: $nameErr, $emailErr, $genderErr, and $websiteErr. These error variables will hold error messages for the required fields. We have also added an if else statement for each $_POST variable. This checks if the $_POST variable is empty (with the PHP empty() function). If it is empty, an error message is stored in the different error variables, and if it is not empty, it sends the user input data through the test_input() function:
// define variables and set to empty values
$nameErr = $emailErr = $genderErr = $websiteErr = «»;
$name = $email = $gender = $comment = $website = «»;
?php
if ($_SERVER[«REQUEST_METHOD»] == «POST») if (empty($_POST[«name»])) $nameErr = «Name is required»;
> else $name = test_input($_POST[«name»]);
>
if (empty($_POST[«email»])) $emailErr = «Email is required»;
> else $email = test_input($_POST[«email»]);
>
if (empty($_POST[«website»])) $website = «»;
> else $website = test_input($_POST[«website»]);
>
if (empty($_POST[«comment»])) $comment = «»;
> else $comment = test_input($_POST[«comment»]);
>
if (empty($_POST[«gender»])) $genderErr = «Gender is required»;
> else $gender = test_input($_POST[«gender»]);
>
>
?>
PHP — Display The Error Messages
Then in the HTML form, we add a little script after each required field, which generates the correct error message if needed (that is if the user tries to submit the form without filling out the required fields):
Example
The next step is to validate the input data, that is «Does the Name field contain only letters and whitespace?», and «Does the E-mail field contain a valid e-mail address syntax?», and if filled out, «Does the Website field contain a valid URL?».
PHP Form Validation
PHP Form may contain different types of validation techniques. In many cases of PHP Form Validation “*” symbol is used for the mandatory & required fields. There are different types of validating a task. PHP will do the content processing from a FORM of content, but the form will be made using HTML. In-text, The PHP Form may contain different types of inputs. It may contain text fields, radio buttons/buttons, a Selection list with multiple options, checkboxes, submit buttons, etc.
Web development, programming languages, Software testing & others
Various Form Validation in PHP
There is various Form Validation in PHP Programming Language techniques that will help us a lot in invalidation. Suppose if you have entered any wrong thing, errors will be omitted/highlighted with a message along with the relevant field.
There are two types of validation available in the PHP web language. =
1. Client-Side Validation: In Client-side validation, Validation will be performed on the client web applications like browsers/any other.
2. Server-Side Validation: In Server-Side Validation, Validation will be performed in the server machine after data is submitted, and this data will be sent to the server to validate.
Fields that are used for the validation rules:
- Name: This field is mandatory in the PHP form. It should contain only whitespace and letters.
- EMAIL: This is also a mandatory field like the NAME field in a PHP form. It should contain only a specific valid EMAIL ADDRESS with “@” and. “In the middle of the text.
- Website: This is not a mandatory field like the EMAIL field. It is an optional field. If this website field has some text, it should be a valid URL ADDRESS.
- Comment: This is also an optional field, but it contains a Multi-line input field(text inputs area)
- Gender: It is a mandatory field just like the NAME and EMAIL fields. It allows us to select only one option from two, three, or more options. Only two select options will be provided in the PHP FORM most of the time.
Text Fields of the PHP FORM
Normally the syntax will look like this:
Name1: E-mail1: Website1: Comment1:
Explanation:
The above-mentioned html form elements are used to grab/specify the text content. If you observe, for each input type “text” is defined so that those elements are defined as text input elements.
Radio Button Fields/Elements
There are only some fields that accept radio buttons (select options), and the basic HTML code looks like this:
Gender1: Female1 Male1 Other1
HTML FORM element
The HTML FORM element mostly accepts two specific attributes. They are action and method attributes.
Basic Syntax of HTML FORM:
The output of the above Syntax:
Select List Field & Submit Button Field
It will provide some options for multiple options selections, like selecting vegetables for home from the market or selecting different types of fruits from many types of fruits.
Syntax of Select List:
Select Fields Looks like this ::
The output of the above Syntax:
To validate the PHP FORM, at the starting point of the HTML, one has to place $_SERVER[“REQUEST_METHOD”]. If REQUEST_MODE has POST as a value, then you will know that the PHP script is submitted. We can also use GET as a value of some different characteristics.
Validating the PHP FORM contents
Here is the value of “$_SERVER[“PHP_SELF”].” PHP_SELF contains the filenames of the PHP programming script which will be executed. PHP_SELF is one of the superglobal variables which will return the filename of the currently executing programming script. bmitted. Here the value of “so use GET as value electing dif$_SERVER[“REQUEST_METHOD”] is used to know whether the script is submitted or not. HERE “POST” value is used for the REQUEST_METHOD.
This is an example of PHP Form Validation. The filter_var() function filters the variable with the help of the specified filter. Check out the output below so that you can understand.
.error else < $name1 = test_input($_POST["name1"]); >if (empty($_POST["email1"])) < $emailErr1 = "Email1 is required"; >else < $email1 = test_input($_POST["email1"]); if (!filter_var($email1, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) < $emailErr1 = "Invalid email1 format"; >> if (empty($_POST["website1"])) < $website1 = ""; >else < $website1 = test_input($_POST["website1"]); >if (empty($_POST["comment1"])) < $comment1 = ""; >else < $comment1 = test_input($_POST["comment1"]); >if (empty($_POST["gender1"])) < $genderErr1 = "Gender1 is required"; >else < $gender1 = test_input($_POST["gender1"]); >> function test_input($data1) < $data1 = trim($data1); $data1 = stripslashes($data1); $data1 = htmlspecialchars($data1); return $data1; >?> Absolute classes registration ::
* required field.
Your given values are as:"; echo $name1; echo "
"; echo $email1; echo "
"; echo $website1; echo "
"; echo $comment1; echo "
"; echo $gender1; ?>
Conclusion
I hope you learned what the definition of PHP Form Validation is, Various Form Validation in PHP Programming Language in detail, along with various examples of different types of input methods in PHP Form to ensure the validation is perfect and to understand the concept.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to PHP Form Validation. Here we discuss the various forms of Validation in PHP along with programming examples for better understanding. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
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