Redirecting error messages - php

Question

How do I redirect the error messages from my html_form_send.php back to my email.php page. Here is what I got, I have my form email.php:
email.php
<form name = 'htmlform' action = '$template/html_form_send.php'
method = 'post' class = 'form-horizontal well' >
My email.php links to my html_form_send.php which has the following code:
html_form_send.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST['email'])) {
// CHANGE THE TWO LINES BELOW
$email_to = "my email";
$email_subject = "my subject";
function died($error) {
// your error code can go here
echo "We are very sorry, but there were error(s) found \
with the form you submitted. ";
echo "These errors appear below.<br /><br />";
echo $error . "<br /><br />";
echo "Please go back and fix these errors.<br /><br />";
die();
}
// validation expected data exists
if (!isset($_POST['name']) || !isset($_POST['email']) ||
!isset($_POST['telephone']) || !isset($_POST['password'])) {
died('We are sorry, but there appears to be a problem \
with the form you submitted.');
// and instead redirect the user to your error page
header("Location: http://hurstblog.co.uk/contact-error");
}
$name = $_POST['name']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['email']; // required
$telephone = $_POST['telephone']; // not required
$password = $_POST['password']; // required
$error_message = "";
$email_exp = '/^[A-Za-z0-9._%-]+#[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}$/';
if (!preg_match($email_exp,$email_from)) {
$error_message .= 'The Email Address you entered does not \
appear to be valid.<br />';
}
$string_exp = "/^[A-Za-z .'-]+$/";
if (!preg_match($string_exp,$name)) {
$error_message .= 'The First Name you entered does not \
appear to be valid.<br />';
}
if (strlen($telephone) < 2) {
$error_message .= 'The telephone you entered do not \
appear to be valid.<br />';
}
if (strlen($password) < 2) {
$error_message .= 'The password you entered do not \
appear to be valid.<br />';
}
if (strlen($error_message) > 0) {
died($error_message);
}
$email_message = "Form details below.\n\n";
function clean_string($string) {
$bad = array("content-type", "bcc:", "to:", "cc:", "href");
return str_replace($bad,"",$string);
}
$email_message .= "Name: " . clean_string($name) . "\n";
$email_message .= "Email: " . clean_string($email_from) . "\n";
$email_message .= "Telephone: " . clean_string($telephone) . "\n";
$email_message .= "Password: " . clean_string($password) . "\n";
// create email headers
$headers = 'From: ' . $email_from . "\r\n".
'Reply-To: ' . $email_from . "\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
#mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers);
if (mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers)) {
header("Location: http://domain.net");
}
}
die();
?>
My question is how can I redirect the error?

Answer 1

html_form_send.php
// validation expected data exists
if(!isset($_POST['name'])){
header("location: email.php?error=name");
}
if(!isset($_POST['email'])){
header("location: email.php?error=email");
}
if(!isset($_POST['telephone'])){
header("location: email.php?error=telephone");
}
if(!isset($_POST['password'])){
header("location: email.php?error=password");
}
$name = $_POST['name']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['email']; // required
$telephone = $_POST['telephone']; // not required
$password = $_POST['password']; // required
$email_exp = '/^[A-Za-z0-9._%-]+#[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}$/';
if(!preg_match($email_exp,$email_from)) {
header("location: email.php?error=invalid_email");
}
$string_exp = "/^[A-Za-z .'-]+$/";
if(!preg_match($string_exp,$name)) {
header("location: email.php?error=invalid_firstname");
}
if(strlen($telephone) < 2) {
header("location: email.php?error=invalid_telephone");
}
if(strlen($password) < 2) {
header("location: email.php?error=invalid_password");
}
The $_GET['error'] will contain the error ID, so in your email.php, you should put the error messages.
$error_message = "";
if($_GET['error']=='invalid_email'){
$error_message .= 'The Email Address you entered does not appear to be valid.<br />';
}
if($_GET['error']=='invalid_firstname'){
$error_message .= 'The First Name you entered does not appear to be valid.<br />';
}
//etc
if(strlen($error_message) > 0) {
echo($error_message);
}

Answer 2

What I always do is get the error code or assign the text for the error on the validating page to a session variable, and then just echo out that session variable on the page where you want the user to see the variable. Don't forget to include session_start(); at the beginning of each page though!