submit form to page and depending on input show different div - php

Question

I Have a form which when submitted needs to go to the page and then show one of 4 hidden divs depending on the page.
Here is the form
<form>
<input id="place" name="place" type="text">
<input name="datepicker" type="text" id="datepicker">
<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" />
</form>
Here is the page
<div id="brighton">
<p>Brighton</p>
</div>
<div id="devon">
<p>Devon</p>
</div>
<div id="search">
<p>search</p>
</div>
<div id="variety">
<p>variety</p>
</div>
So if Brighton is typed into the place input i need the form to submit the page and show the Brighton div and if Devon is typed in to show the Devon div etc and if the 2/12/2012 is typed into the date picker input and Brighton into the place input it goes to the page and shows the variety div.
i also need it so if the 1/12/2012 is typed in to the date picker input the page redirects to the page show.html.
any help would be greatly appreciated
thanks.

Answer 1

This is easy if you know PHP at all. It looks like you need a good, easy start. Then you will be able to achieve this in seconds.
Refer to W3SCHOOLS PHP Tutorial.
To achieve what you have mentioned, first make the following changes in your form:
<form action="submit.php" method="post">
<input id="place" name="place" type="text">
<input name="datepicker" type="text" id="datepicker">
<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" />
</form>
Create a new file called submit.php and add the following code:
<?php
$place = $_POST['place'];
$date = $_POST['datepicker'];
if ($date == '1/12/2012') {
header('Location: show.html');
exit;
}
?>
<?php if ($place == 'Brighton''): ?>
<div id="brighton">
<p>Brighton</p>
</div>
<?php elseif ($place == 'Devon'): ?>
<div id="devon">
<p>Devon</p>
</div>
<?php elseif ($place == 'search'): ?>
<div id="search">
<p>search</p>
</div>
<?php elseif ($place == 'Variety'): ?>
<div id="variety">
<p>variety</p>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
Now the above example is not the complete solution, but it gives you an idea as to how you can use if-then-else construct in PHP to compare values and do as desired.

Answer 2

Post your form to a php page and then check the posted form parameters to determine which div to show.
<?php
if ($_POST["place"] == "Brighton") {
?>
<div id="brighton">
<p>Brighton</p>
</div>
<?php
} else if ($_POST["place"] == "Devon") {
?>
<div id="devon">
<p>Devon</p>
</div>
<?php
}
?>
Do that for each div and parameter combination. Make sure you set the "method" attribute on your form to "post":
<form action="somepage.php" method="post">...</form>
In the resulting HTML you will only see the one that matches the form parameter.