Processing my form with required fields php - php

Question

I'm just starting to learn php, so I suspect this is going to be an easy one. I want to create a form that has one required field (name) and requires at least one of two other fields (email or phone number). This is what I came up with:
<?php
if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {
if (empty($_POST["name"]) or {empty($_POST["email"]) and empty($_POST["number"])}) {
$error = "Your name and a contact method are required fields";}
else {
$name = $_POST["name"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$number = $_POST["number"];
$contactmethod = $_POST["contactmethod"];
$subject = $_POST["subject"];
$location = $_POST["location"];
$message = $_POST["message"];
$subjectline = "You have a message from $name!";
$header = "From: $email";
$body = <<<EMAIL
Name: $name,
Number: $number,
Email: $email,
Subject: $subject,
Location: $location,
Contact method: $contactmethod.
$message
EMAIL;
mail("MYEMAILADDRESS", $subjectline, $body, $header);
}
}
?>
I have no clue what's wrong.
Thanks

Answer 1

Your problem: You used { and } in a if-statement.
Next time you can use a PHP code checker like http://phpcodechecker.com/
Correct code:
if (empty($_POST["name"]) or (empty($_POST["email"]) and empty($_POST["number"]))) {
$error = "Your name and a contact method are required fields";}
else {
$name = $_POST["name"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$number = $_POST["number"];
$contactmethod = $_POST["contactmethod"];
$subject = $_POST["subject"];
$location = $_POST["location"];
$message = $_POST["message"];
$subjectline = "You have a message from $name!";
$header = "From: $email";
$body = <<<EMAIL
Name: $name,
Number: $number,
Email: $email,
Subject: $subject,
Location: $location,
Contact method: $contactmethod.
$message
EMAIL;
mail("MYEMAILADDRESS", $subjectline, $body, $header);
}
}
?>

Answer 2

You can't use braces interchangeably with parentheses.
if (empty($_POST["name"]) or {empty($_POST["email"]) and empty($_POST["number"])}) {
it needs to use parentheses
if (empty($_POST["name"]) or (empty($_POST["email"]) and empty($_POST["number"]))) {