PHP email Validation not working - php

Question

I have a form than when I submit incorrectly no error is displayed
<form action="emailSubs.php" method="post">
<p>Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter ?</p>
<p>Name: <input type="text" name="name"><br /></p>
<p>E-mail: <input type="text" name="Email"><br /></p>
<p><input type="submit" name="submit"><br /></p>
</form>
<?php
function validateEmail($data, $fieldName) {
global $errorCount;
if(empty($data)) {
echo "\"$fieldName\" is a required
field.<br />\n";
++$errorCount;
$retval = "";
} else { // olny clean up the input if it isn't
// empty
$retval = trim($data);
$retval = stripslashes($retval);
$pattern = "/^[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*#" .
"[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*" .
"(\[[a-z]]{2,})$/i";
if(preg_match($pattern, $retval) ==0) {
echo "\"$fieldName\" is not a valid E-mail
address.<br />\n";
++$errorCount;
}
}
return ($retval);
}
?>
I think it may be the pattern but am not sure what the problem may be

Answer 1

The problem is that you do not have the two things connected properly...
Leave your form in a separate file from emailSubs.php -
While this is not a necessary step, it will hopefully help you understand the way this works (not to mention it is a much neater / organized way to do it)
<form action="emailSubs.php" method="post">
<p>Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter ?</p>
<p>Name: <input type="text" name="name"><br /></p>
<p>E-mail: <input type="text" name="Email"><br /></p>
<p><input type="submit" name="submit"><br /></p>
</form>
Now, in your emailSubs.php file :
<?php
function validateEmail($data, $fieldName) {
global $errorCount;
if(empty($data)) {
echo "\"$fieldName\" is a required
field.<br />\n";
++$errorCount;
$retval = "";
} else { // olny clean up the input if it isn't
// empty
$retval = trim($data);
$retval = stripslashes($retval);
$pattern = "/^[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*#" .
"[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*" .
"(\[[a-z]]{2,})$/i";
if(preg_match($pattern, $retval) ==0) {
echo "\"$fieldName\" is not a valid E-mail
address.<br />\n";
++$errorCount;
}
}
return ($retval);
}
?>
But, you aren't done, yet -!
You see, you have to connect the two ---
In your form, you specified method="post" - so, we do this:
<?php
$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
?>
Now, there are plenty of good reasons to not use regexp to validate your form.
This is a good read on that topic.
So, what you might do instead, could look like this:
<?php
if(ctype_alnum($_POST['name']) == true){
$name = $_POST['name'];
} else {
exit("Please enter a valid name");
}
if(filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL){
$email = $_POST['email'];
} else {
exit("Please enter a valid email address");
}
?>
And you see? That makes for a much cleaner way to handle your validation.
SO, Full circle, your code didn't display an error because there was nothing to display that error.

Answer 2

I noticed that you have a form, and a function but you don't call the function when the form is submitted. Maybe this is something you are doing outside the scope of the code you included, but just in case, I modified it to be a complete interaction between submission/function call and the form itself. Also, why not use filter_var instead of a regular expression?
Code (working on my local server):
<?php
function validateEmail($data, $fieldName)
{
global $errorCount;
$errorCount=0;
if(empty($data))
{
echo "\"$fieldName\" is a required
field.<br />\n";
++$errorCount;
$retval = "";
}
else
{
// olny clean up the input if it isn't
// empty
$retval = trim($data);
$retval = stripslashes($retval);
if(!filter_var($_POST['Email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL))
{
echo "\"".$_POST['Email']."\" is not a valid E-mail
address.<br />\n";
++$errorCount;
}
}
return ($retval);
}
if(isset($_POST['submit']))
{
$email=validateEmail($_POST['Email'], "Email");
if(empty($errorCount))
{
//create subscription
echo "Subscribed!";
}
}
?>
<form action="test.php" method="post">
<p>Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter ?</p>
<p>Name: <input type="text" name="name" value="<?php echo $_POST['name'];?>"><br /></p>
<p>E-mail: <input type="text" name="Email" value="<?php echo $_POST['Email'];?>"><br /></p>
<p><input type="submit" name="submit"><br /></p>
</form>