Trying to create a small forum by following a tutorial - php

Question

If anyone would be able to point me in the right direction it would make my day!
I'm trying to create a forum by following this tutorial: "https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-phpmysql-powered-forum-from-scratch--net-10188".
I've created the pages with some modifications but the problem I'm getting is at the sign-in, first of all when I add the connect.php page to the sign-in page, the code doesn't echo the form, it's blank. Also when I don't use the connect page, the error messages get printed out at the start when I would like them to come after hitting submit.
I have managed to get a connection to my database and get out data with other code, but I can't seem to get this working.
<?php
session_start();
//signin.php
include 'forumHeader.php';
include 'connect.php';
echo '<h3>Sign in</h3>';
if(isset($_SESSION['signed_in']) && $_SESSION['signed_in'] == true)
{
echo 'You are already signed in, you can sign out if you want.</br></br>';
echo 'Welcome, ' . $_SESSION['user_name'] . '. Proceed to the forum overview.';
}
else
{
if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] != 'POST')
{
/*the form hasn't been posted yet, display it
note that the action="" will cause the form to post to the same page it is on */
echo '<form method="post" action="">
Username: <input type="text" name="user_name" />
Password: <input type="password" name="user_pass"/>
<input type="submit" value="Sign in" />
</form>';
}
/* so, the form has been posted, we'll process the data in three steps:
1. Check the data
2. Let the user refill the wrong fields (if necessary)
3. Varify if the data is correct and return the correct response
*/
$errors = array(); /* declare the array for later use */
if(!isset($_POST['user_name'])) //NOT + FALSE + POST FROM INPUT //ISSET RETURNS FALSE WHEN CHECKING THAT HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO NULL
{
$errors[] = 'The username field must not be empty.';
}
if(!isset($_POST['user_pass']))
{
$errors[] = 'The password field must not be empty.';
}
if(!empty($errors)) /*check for an empty array, if there are errors, they're in this array (note the ! operator)*/ //Detta betyder, om ERRORS INTE är TOM
{
echo 'Uh-oh.. a couple of fields are not filled in correctly..';
echo '<ul>';
foreach($errors as $key => $value) /* walk through the array so all the errors get displayed */
{
echo '<li>' . $value . '</li>'; /* this generates a nice error list */
}
echo '</ul>';
}
else
{
//the form has been posted without errors, so save it
//notice the use of mysql_real_escape_string, keep everything safe!
//also notice the sha1 function which hashes the password
$sql = "SELECT
user_id,
user_name,
user_level
FROM
forum_Users
WHERE
user_name = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['user_name']) . "'
AND
user_pass = '" . sha1($_POST['user_pass']) . "'";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
if(!$result)
{
//something went wrong, display the error
echo 'Something went wrong while signing in. Please try again later.';
//echo mysql_error(); //debugging purposes, uncomment when needed
}
else
{
//the query was successfully executed, there are 2 possibilities
//1. the query returned data, the user can be signed in
//2. the query returned an empty result set, the credentials were wrong
if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 0)
{
echo 'You have supplied a wrong user/password combination. Please try again.';
}
else
{
//set the $_SESSION['signed_in'] variable to TRUE
$_SESSION['signed_in'] = true;
//we also put the user_id and user_name values in the $_SESSION, so we can use it at various pages
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$_SESSION['user_id'] = $row['user_id'];
$_SESSION['user_name'] = $row['user_name'];
$_SESSION['user_level'] = $row['user_level'];
}
echo 'Welcome, ' . $_SESSION['user_name'] . '. Proceed to the forum overview.';
}
}
}
}
include 'forumFooter.php';
?>
This is pretty much the code I use for the sign-in page. The code I have at the connect.php page is:
<?php
//connect.php
$server = 'server';
$username = 'user';
$password = 'pass';
$database = 'database';
if(!mysql_connect($server, $username, $password))
{
exit('Error: could not establish database connection');
}
if(!mysql_select_db($database)
{
exit('Error: could not select the database');
}
?>

Answer 1

Where you are echoing out the form you should be elseing into the form being processed if there is $_POST, atm you are going to it whether there is $_POST or not and trying to process empty $_POSTs will throw errors.
Side note: set your error reporting to all using this method error_reporting(E_ALL), that will let you know whats going wrong in future, it is normally set where you set session_start()