Two contact forms with same action without duplicating code - php

Question

I have a site that has two contact forms (One is avaliable in a modal and the other is on the bottom of the page). Both forms have the same structure e.g same inputs and names etc... they both also have the same action method.
My question is - how can I use the same action method on both forms where the $_POST variables are dependant on what form is submitted? For example if I fill out the second contact form, the action gets the data from the first contact form.
I thought that one way would be to give both forms different id's e.g firstForm and secondForm and then pass the id of the form as a parameter to the action method. Although this could work I am not sure if it is an efficient way or if there is an easier way?
I have completely disregarded the fact that I could actually make two separate action methods but that is just ridiculous and a lot of redundant programming when I know I can just have one action method to serve both forms, but I'm just at a loss of how to implement it properly.
This is the first one:
<div id="myModal" class="modal fade" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="myModalLabel" aria-hidden="true">
<div class="modal-dialog" >
<div class="modal-content">
<div class="modal-header">
<button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="modal" aria-hidden="true">×</button>
<h3 id="myModalLabel">Flick me an email!</h3>
<p>I will get back to you ASAP!</p>
</div>
<div class="modal-body">
<div class="status alert alert-success" style="display: none"></div>
<form id="main-contact-form" class="contact-form" name="contact-form" method="post" action="assets/php/sendemail.php">
<div class="form-group"><input class="form-control required" type="text" name="name" placeholder="Name" data-placement="top"></div>
<div class="form-group"><input class="form-control email" type="email" name="email" placeholder="example#email.com" data-placement="top" ></div>
<div class="form-group"><textarea class="form-control" name="message" placeholder="Your message here.." data-placement="top" style="height: 200px;" ></textarea></div>
<div class="form-group"><button type="submit" id="modal-submit" class="btn btn-danger btn-lg">Send Message</button><button class="btn" data-dismiss="modal" aria-hidden="true" style="float: right;">Cancel</button> </div>
</form>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
And the second one:
<form id="main-contact-form" class="contact-form" name="contact-form" method="post" action="assets/php/sendemail.php">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-sm-6">
<div class="form-group">
<input type="text" name="name" class="form-control" required="required"
placeholder="Name">
</div>
</div>
<div class="col-sm-6">
<div class="form-group">
<input type="email" name="email" class="form-control" required="required"
placeholder="Email address">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<div class="col-sm-12">
<div class="form-group">
<textarea name="message" id="message" required="required" class="form-control"
rows="8" placeholder="Message"></textarea>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<button type="submit" id="submit" class="btn btn-danger btn-lg">Send Message
</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>

Answer 1

In each of your forms you can add a hidden input element between your <form>...</form> tags to indicate which form is being submitted.
In your first form you could have this element:
<input type="hidden" name="type" value="form1">
Then in your second form add this element
<input type="hidden" name="type" value="form2">
When your form is submitted, the receiving PHP script can read the type value as a post variable that could you act on, e.g.,
if ($_POST['type']=='form1') {
// Do this
} else if ($_POST['type']=='form2') {
// Do this instead
}
Maybe you don't want to add a hidden input and you could add a parameter to the GET string of your form's action.
So, in your first form you can do this - add ?type=form1 to the end of your action:
<form id="main-contact-form" class="contact-form" name="contact-form" method="post" action="assets/php/sendemail.php?type=form1">
And, in your second form you can do this - add ?type=form2 to the end of your action:
<form id="main-contact-form" class="contact-form" name="contact-form" method="post" action="assets/php/sendemail.php?type=form2">
In the sendmail.php script you can access the value using the $_GET variable:
if ($_GET['type']=='form1') {
// Do this
} else if ($_GET['type']=='form2') {
// Do this instead
}

Answer 2

Place a:
<input type="hidden" name="formPosted" value="1">
inside every form that has action to specific php file, and for each form change input value, then in php use if else to see which form is submitted :) and then your code... :)