html form will not write to file (php script) - php

Question

I have an HTML file that contains the following form:
<form action="" class="contact-form">
<div class="input-group tm-mb-30">
<input name="username" type="text" class="form-control rounded-0 border-top-0 border-end-0 border-start-0" placeholder="Name">
</div>
<div class="input-group tm-mb-30">
<input name="email" type="text" class="form-control rounded-0 border-top-0 border-end-0 border-start-0" placeholder="Email">
</div>
<div class="input-group tm-mb-30">
<textarea rows="5" name="message" class="textarea form-control rounded-0 border-top-0 border-end-0 border-start-0" placeholder="Message"></textarea>
</div>
<div class="input-group justify-content-end">
<input type="submit" class="btn btn-primary tm-btn-pad-2" value="Save">
</div>
</form>
It seems fine to me. I also have a php script:
> <?php
extract($_REQUEST);
> $file=fopen("form.txt.", "a");
fwrite($file, "----");
fwrite($file," name :");
fwrite($file, $username ."\n");
fwrite($file," email :");
fwrite($file, $email ."\n");
frwite($file," message .:");
fwrite($file, $message ."\n");
fclose($file);
> ?>
Both are in the same file, the form in between html tags, the php script after the /html tag.
If will not execute. No matter what I do, form.txt remains empty. form.txt is in the same directory and has 777.
Since I cannot find any problem with the script (there are no error messages in the apache log file), I am wondering if there is something wrong with the php on this server (there are also no entries in syslog). phpinfo page displays fine, and php --version tells me 8.2.1 is running.
I then changed action in form to "form.php" and added method=POST to test with separate script. form.php was simply:
<?php
echo "NAME:";
echo $username;
echo "EMAIL:";
echo $email;
echo "MESSAGE:";
echo $message;
echo "POSTNAME:";
echo $_POST['username'];
echo "POSTEMAIL:";
echo $_POST['email'];
echo "POSTMESSAGE:";
echo $_POST['message'];
?>
I did not get any output for the first three entries. But I got output for the last three entries. I expected to get output for all - since the form, by sending the inputs, should automatically create/define those variables. Am I wrong?
I then added this to form.php (in front of the code mentioned above) in order to define the variables:
if(isset($_POST['submit']))
{
//fetch form data
$username = $_POST['username'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
}
because I thought defining them would solve the problem. It did not. When executing form.php (by sending the form in the html), apache.log now tells me that $username, $email and $message are not defined. But I just defined them.... ärx

Answer 1

Remove the last dot (.) from filename form.txt.
WRONG FILE NAME form.txt.
$file=fopen("form.txt.", "a");
CORRECT FILE NAME
$file=fopen("form.txt", "a");
Now all entries will go to form.txt file.
Full Code is shared here:
Add form method as POST and add name='submit' to submit button
<form action="" class="contact-form" method="post">
<div class="input-group tm-mb-30">
<input name="username" type="text" class="form-control rounded-0 border-top-0 border-end-0 border-start-0" placeholder="Name">
</div>
<div class="input-group tm-mb-30">
<input name="email" type="text" class="form-control rounded-0 border-top-0 border-end-0 border-start-0" placeholder="Email">
</div>
<div class="input-group tm-mb-30">
<textarea rows="5" name="message" class="textarea form-control rounded-0 border-top-0 border-end-0 border-start-0" placeholder="Message"></textarea>
</div>
<div class="input-group justify-content-end">
<input type="submit" class="btn btn-primary tm-btn-pad-2" value="Save" name="submit">
</div>
</form>
If form is submitted then write to file. Also you have typo mistake in frwite which is corrected too here.
if(isset($_POST['submit'])){
extract($_REQUEST);
$file=fopen("form.txt", "a");
fwrite($file, "----");
fwrite($file," name :");
fwrite($file, $username ."\n");
fwrite($file," email :");
fwrite($file, $email ."\n");
fwrite($file," message .:");
fwrite($file, $message ."\n");
fclose($file);
}

Answer 2

So this solved it for me:
I added "name=submit" to the submit input in HTML. The form posts to form.php, which now looks like this:
<html>
<body>
<?php
// turn on error reporting
ini_set('error_reporting', 'on');
error_reporting(E_ALL);
// Remove all illegal characters from email
// $email_address = filter_var($email_address, FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
// check if form has been submitted
if(isset($_POST['submit']))
{
//fetch form data
$username = $_POST['username'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
//write form data
$fp = fopen('form.txt', 'a');
fwrite($fp, "---");
fwrite($fp,"name :");
fwrite($fp, $username ."\n");
fwrite($fp," email :");
fwrite($fp, $email ."\n");
fwrite($fp," message :");
fwrite($fp, $message ."\n");
fclose ($fp);
}
//show submitted data
echo "NAME:";
echo $username;
echo "<br>";
echo "EMAIL:";
echo $email;
echo "<br>";
echo "MESSAGE:";
echo $message;
echo "<br>";
echo "POSTNAME:";
echo $_POST['username'];
echo "<br>";
echo "POSTEMAIL:";
echo $_POST['email'];
echo "<br>";
echo "POSTMESSAGE:";
echo $_POST['message'];
echo "<br>";
// extract($_REQUEST); might need to be added
?>
The data has been submitted - thanks
</body>
</html>
For some reason, the extract command seems unnecessary; it works fine without it, but I am not sure why. Anyhow, the data is now processed into the file. I got it. Thanks so much, everyone!