Issues writing HTML form fields to text file - php

Question

I'm trying to write the contents of a HTML form field to a text file on my web server.
I was able to get code I found on an example to work in a plain PHP file, but not in my desired file.
Whenever I submit the form, PHP throws an error. PHP Notice: Undefined index: person in <snip>/upload.php on line 26, referer: <snip>/upload
Here's the code of the file I want to log:
<?php
//Delete Current Files
$dirfiles = glob('<snip>/uploads/*'); // get all file names
foreach($dirfiles as $dirfile){ // iterate files
if(is_file($dirfile))
unlink($dirfile); // delete file
}
//Upload New Files
foreach ($_FILES["images"]["error"] as $key => $error) {
if ($error == UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
$name = $_FILES["images"]["name"][$key];
move_uploaded_file( $_FILES["images"]["tmp_name"][$key], "uploads/" . $_FILES['images']['name'][$key]);
}
}
echo "<h2>Successfully Uploaded Images</h2>";
//Log
$when = date("F j, Y, g:i a");
$who = $_POST["person"];
$out = fopen("output.txt", "a");
if (!$out) {
print("Could not append to file");
exit;
}
fputs($out,"$who\t");
fputs($out,"$when\t");
fputs($out,"$_SERVER[REMOTE_ADDR]\n");
print("Name, Time, Date, and IP Address have been recorded.");
?>
In the log file, date and IP address are logged fine, but not the name. (Like This)
February 11, 2013, 3:26 am IPADDR
where the name should be at the beginning like
JohnDoe February 11, 2013, 3:26 am IPADDR
In the original form file, it's just a typical form:
<form method="post" action="upload.php">
<input type="text" name="person" /> Your Name<br />
snip...
</form>
The only difference between the form where the logging worked and where it didn't was that this one also allows for image uploading via <input type="file" name="images" id="images" multiple />
What on earth would be causing the name not to be logged?
Edit: Update - It turns out thus bug is not present in Internet Explorer, but still is present in Chrome and Firefox. That's really strange.

Answer 1

you need to add formdata.append("person", $('input[name=person]').val()); in your js file
if (formdata) {
formdata.append("person", $('input[name=person]').val());
$.ajax({
url: "upload.php",
type: "POST",
data: formdata,
processData: false,
contentType: false,
success: function (res) {
document.getElementById("response").innerHTML = res;
}
});
}
REF
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/XMLHttpRequest/FormData/Using_FormData_Objects

Answer 2

You must set enctype="multipart/form-data" in your html form attributes. I suspect FormData.append() isn't working properly if you don't.
EDIT:
Try adding this to the javascript code (maybe after if (formdata) {):
var person = $('input[name=person]').val();
formdata.append('person', person);