Passing hidden values, html - php

Question

I have a the following php file. displayitems.php
<?php
*
*
*
echo "<form action='http://retailthree.nn4m.co.uk/alex/add_data.html'>";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='value' value='$value'/>";
echo "<button type='submit'>Add</button>";
echo "</form>";
?>
Then the html file. add_data.html:
<form method="post" name="form">
<table id="mytable" border="1">
<tr>
<td>Trend <input type="text" name="trend" size="20"></td>
//many other fields
</tr>
</table>
</forn>
Then the aforementioned html will perform an action on a php file.
However that I want to achieve is to pass the hidden data ->$value from the first php file, to the Trend input box(to print the $value content to the input box). Is this possible?

Answer 1

You would simple use the posted variable and place it in the value attribute of your <input> like so:
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $_GET['value'] ?>" name="trend" size="20">
Of course you should do some validation before echoing it to the <input>
EDIT:
Quite rightly mentioned by #ocanal - GET is the default method for forms. You will not be able to process these forms with PHP if your file is *.html it must be a *.php file.

Answer 2

change the name of add_data.html file to add_data.php use following code in add_data.php file
<?php
// your php code
?>
<form method="post" name="form">
<table id="mytable" border="1">
<tr>
<td>
Trend <input type="text" name="trend" size="20"
value="<?php echo $_POST['trend'] ?>">
</td>
//many other fields
</tr>
</table>
</forn>

Answer 3

I'm a little lost but assuming you mean that you want the hidden value to appear in a text input field on another page I would suggest this:
HTML page
<form name='form' action='yourPhpFile.php' method='POST'>
<input name='hiddenGuy' type='hidden' value='hello from the hidden guy'/>
<input type='submit' value='Send'/>
</from>
Now for your php file called yourPhpFile.php
<?php
//your value from the hidden field will be held in the array $_POST from the previous document.
//the key depends on your field's name.
$val = $_POST['hiddenGuy'];
echo "<form name='form' action='yourPhpFile.php' method='POST'>
<input name='showingInText' type='text' value='".$val."'/>
</from>";
?>
This can be achieved on the same page too by removing the form action attribute. and echoing the a different input type and value depending on whether $_POST is set using the isset method.
if(isset($_POST['hiddenGuy'])){
echo "<input name='showingInText' type='text' value='".$_POST['hiddenGuy']."'/>";
}
else{
echo "<input name='hiddenGuy' type='hidden' value='hello from the hidden guy'/>
<input type='submit' value='Send'/>";
}