Checking for a simple form being posted in PHP - php

Question

I have a simple login form, at the top of this page i check for the form being submitted to i can process the login if it's been submitted.
if (!empty($_POST)) {
echo "form submitted";
}
else {
?>
<form style="margin-bottom: 0px !important;" class="form-horizontal" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);?>">
<div class="content">
<h4 class="title">Login Access</h4>
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-sm-12">
<div class="input-group">
<span class="input-group-addon"><i class="fa fa-user"></i></span>
<input type="text" placeholder="Username" id="username" class="form-control">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-sm-12">
<div class="input-group">
<span class="input-group-addon"><i class="fa fa-lock"></i></span>
<input type="password" placeholder="Password" id="password" class="form-control">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="foot">
<button class="btn btn-primary" data-dismiss="modal" type="submit">Log in</button>
</div>
</form>
<?php } ?>
I've tested with a var_dump($_POST);, but it doesn't display any post variables when submitted. I'm using XAMPP in my production enviroment, so i'm wondering if thats the issue?

Answer 1

The form doesn't have method="post", so you are making a GET request and $_POST will be empty.
Even if that wasn't the case, none of your form controls have name attributes, so they cannot be successful (so won't generate any data to put in the form).

Answer 2

By default forms submit their values via GET. To change this you need to set the method attribute of the <form> tag to POST
<form method="post" style="margin-bottom: 0px !important;" class="form-horizontal" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);?>">
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
HERE
As Quentin pointed out already, you are also missing the name attribute in your form elements. So even your $_GET would be empty if you checked it.