PHP POST and REQUEST are empty? - php

Question

I'm running a Raspberry Pi (Model B I think) with Raspbian. I followed the instructions to install a web server (with a few tweaks as parts appeared outdated and I also installed telnet in order to send emails from PHP).
I have a form on the webpage and when I set it to use the GET method var_dump($_GET) returns an array of the inputs as expected however when I set it to use POST method $_POST and $_REQUEST are empty (var_dump returns array(0) {}).
HTML
<form method="POST" enctype="text/plain" id="contactForm">
<fieldset>
<legend>Contact us:</legend>
Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="firstname" value="first name"><br>
<input type="text" name="lastname" value="last name"><br>
E-mail:<br>
<input type="text" name="mail" value="e-mail address"><br>
Phone number:<br>
<input type="text" name="phone" value="phone number"><br>
Reason for contacting:
<select form="contactForm" name="reason">
<option value="purchase">Purchase</option>
<option value="complaint">Complaint</option>
<option value="business">Business</option>
<option value="other">Other</option>
</select>
Comment:<br>
<textarea rows="12" cols="70" name="comment" form="contactF$
<input type="submit" value="Send">
</fieldset>
</form>
PHP (It's as a <?PHP ?> at the end of the HTML file, I have check it runs using debug):
var_dump($_POST);
var_dump($_REQUEST);
my /usr/share/doc/debian-reference-common/html/.htaccess and
my /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini files can be found here

Answer 1

You might need to include <form action='page'></form> for the submit to work. Unless you are AJAXing the input values.

Answer 2

You could try adding a name attribute to your submit button HTML:
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send">
and then do a check on that value in your PHP:
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
// do stuff here
echo $_POST['firstname'] . "<br>";
echo $_POST['lastname'] . "<br>";
echo $_POST['mail'] . "<br>";
echo $_POST['phone'] . "<br>";
echo $_POST['reason'] . "<br>";
echo $_POST['comment'];
}
?>
You should also add a form action pointing to the page in which the above php is located, in this case, it is the same page:
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="POST" id="contactForm">