Write data from text box to a text file - php

I have developed a text box and I am trying to write this data to a text file.
The PHP code is generating the file but the data is not being written.
below is my code:
<html>
<body>
<form name="form" method="post">
<input type="text" name="text_box" size="50"/>
<input type="submit" id="search-submit" value="submit" />
<?
$a=#$_POST["text_box"];
$myFile = "t.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh,$a);
fclose($fh);
?>

the biggest issue i see with your code is the fact that you aren't opening php tags. you do
<?
but it should be
<?php
then, the way you call $_POST and write file and stuff means it will be executed when you first load the form into the browser as well. the php engine makes no distinction between first run and consecutive run. this means that even if the user don't submit anything, there will still be an empty file, created from the run of the script where the form was displayed. it's a side effect. i've modified your code just a little. here's my take on this:
<html>
<body>
<form name="form" method="post">
<input type="text" name="text_box" size="50"/>
<input type="submit" id="search-submit" value="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
<?php
if(isset($_POST['text_box'])) { //only do file operations when appropriate
$a = $_POST['text_box'];
$myFile = "t.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $a);
fclose($fh);
}
?>

The form's submit action is "get", but in your PHP code, you get the variable by $_POST. Try by $_GET instead.

The form is sending a GET request, but you are trying to access $_POST["text_box"]. Try changing that to $_GET['text_box'], or using a form method POST instead.

You can replace your PHP code with just:
if ($_REQUEST) {
file_put_contents("t.txt", $_REQUEST["text_box"]);
}
That will ensure that file only gets overwritten when the form is actually submitted, not also when the form is displayed.

Does $a have data? Try echo'ing it out. Or, try print_r'ing your $_POST.
EDIT: Your form's method is get, but you're trying to use $_POST. Use $_GET, or, $_REQUEST.

Related

PHP: Editing a file using a dynamic filename

I have a PHP script that I am trying to edit some text files that have a dynamic file name. I think I am about 90% there, but am having an issue where the resulting output filename is incorrect.
The files in question I am trying to edit are for VoIP phones nad have a ormat of MAC.cfg, where MAC is the MAC address of the phone in question.
I have an HTML page that is just a very simple form where the MAC address is entered, and the form calls a PHP script that using that MAC address and brings up the contents of the appropriate MAC.cfg file. When I edit what I want to edit, however, the resulting filename becomes MAC.cfg.cfg (i.e., it adds an extra ".cfg" to it), and I do not know why.
The code for the page where the MAC address of the phone gets entered is:
<form method="post" action="edit-imaccfg.php">
<input type="text" name="macaddress" value="">
<input type="submit">
</form>
and the contents of 'edit-imaccfg.php' is this:
<?php
// set file to read
$filename = $_POST['macaddress'].=".cfg";
$newdata = $_POST['newd'];
if ($newdata != '') {
// open file
$fw = fopen($filename, 'w') or die('Could not open file!');
// write to file
// added stripslashes to $newdata
$fb = fwrite($fw,stripslashes($newdata)) or die('Could not write to file');
// close file
fclose($fw);
}
// open file
$fh = fopen($filename, "r") or die("Could not open file!");
// read file contents
$data = fread($fh, filesize($filename)) or die("Could not read file!");
// close file
fclose($fh);
// print file contents
?>
<html>
<body>
<form action="<?= $_SERVER[php_self] ?>" method="POST" >
<textarea name="newd" cols="100%" rows="100"> <?= $data ?> </textarea>
<input type="hidden" name="macaddress" value="<?= $_POST['macaddress'] ?>" />
<input type="submit" value="Change">
</form>
</body>
</html>
I don't know what, in the above code, is adding the extra '.cfg' to the outputted filename, rather than overwriting the intended MAC.CFG file.
Your insight is greatly appreciated Thanks! :-)

How to save string entered in HTML form to text file

I have a very basic PHP file. i want to have two textboxes for user input, and a submit button. The user will enter their first and last name, then i would like to append or create a TXT file with the data entered from field1 and field2.
Possibly i am going about this the wrong way. I will post two of the ways i have been tinkering around with.
<html>
<head>
<title>Field1 & 2</title>
</head>
<body>
<form>
What is your name?<br>
<input type="text" name="field1"><br>
<input type="text" name="field2"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
<?php
$txt= $_POST['field1'].' - '.$_POST['field2'];
$var_str3 = var_export($txt, true); //is this necessary?
$var3 = "$var_str3"; //is this necessary?
file_put_contents('fields.txt', $var3.PHP_EOL, FILE_APPEND);
?>
</body>
</html>
I cant figure out how to get the data from field1 and field2 into a string variable.
I have also messed around with using this php instead of the section listed above
<?php
$txt= "data.txt";
if (isset($_POST['field1']) && isset($_POST['field2'])) {
$fh = fopen($txt, 'a');
$txt=$_POST['field1'].' - '.$_POST['field2'];
fwrite($fh,$txt); // Write information to the file
fclose($fh); // Close the file
}
?>
You should learn about HTML Forms And PHP Form Handling.
In your code you have to use a form HTTP method. And the form data must sent for processing to a PHP file.
In this code i use HTTP PSOT method you can also use GET method the result will be same. This two method is used for collecting the form data. And the php file name is "action.php".
index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Field 1 & 2</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="action.php" method="post">
What is your name?<br>
<input type="text" name="field1"><br>
<input type="text" name="field2"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
action.php
<?php
$path = 'data.txt';
if (isset($_POST['field1']) && isset($_POST['field2'])) {
$fh = fopen($path,"a+");
$string = $_POST['field1'].' - '.$_POST['field2'];
fwrite($fh,$string); // Write information to the file
fclose($fh); // Close the file
}
?>
Let's take a snippet from http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp
<form action="action_page.php" method="post">
First name:<br>
<input type="text" name="firstname" value=""><br>
Last name:<br>
<input type="text" name="lastname" value=""><br><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
Note the first line: upon form submission a php script is called: action_page.php.
action_page.php is your webpage with the form and the embedded php script. action_page.php both displays the empty form and then process the submitted data.
On the first line also it is specified that the submitted data is sent with the POST method.
The php part will look like this:
<?php
if( isset($_POST['firstname'] ) && isset( $_POST['lastname'] ) )
{
$txt= $_POST['firstname'].' - '.$_POST['lastname'] . PHP_EOL;
file_put_contents('fields.txt', $txt, FILE_APPEND);
}
?>
The if statement is there because the first time the script action_page.php is loaded its purpose is only to display the form and don't receive any POST data.
As the form is submitted by the user the script will receive the data and store to file.
The script will also (with this approach) display again an empty form ready for the submission of another entry.
You can rearrange things in order to have two web pages: one with just the form, another one with a "Thank you" message and the data processing php script.

PHP how to clear memory when refreshing

I am facing the following issue. I have a simple textarea where user will use to submit text which is subsequently written to a text file in the server. This is working.
But when I refresh the page it adds in the last added text into the text file again causing duplicate entries.
Any idea what I must do to prevent this? Below is the code I used for the textarea portion.
<html>
<body>
<form name="form" method="post">
<input type="text" name="text_box" size="50"/>
<input type="submit" id="search-submit" value="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
<?php
if(isset($_POST['text_box'])) {
$a = $_POST['text_box'];
$myFile = "textfile.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a+') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $a."\r\n");
fclose($fh);
}
?>
Pages that are loaded via POST will cause the browser to ask the user to resubmit the information to view the page resulting in the actions performed by that page happening again. If the pages is requested via GET and has variables in the querystring the same thing happens but silently (without the user being prompted to d it again).
The best to work around this is to use the POST/REDIRECT/GET pattern. I used it in an example about processing payments that I wrote for Authorize.Net. Hopefully that points you in the right direction.
A simpler so
You can just store a simple hash on session and regenerate it every time.
When the user reloads the page the php wont be executed.
<?php
if(isset($_POST['text_box']) && $_SESSION['formFix'] == $_POST['fix']) {
$a = $_POST['text_box'];
$myFile = "textfile.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a+') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $a."\r\n");
fclose($fh);
}
?>
<html>
<body>
<form name="form" method="post">
<input type="text" name="text_box" size="50"/>
<?php
$value = md5(rand(1,999999));
$_SESSION['formFix'] = $value;
?>
<input type="hidden" name="fix" value="<?= $value; ?>" />
<input type="submit" id="search-submit" value="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
ps: the order of the blocks will matter, so you need to invert em.
As John said, you need to redirect user after form submit.
fclose($fh);
// and
header("Location: success.php or where else");
exit;
Note: Your redirection won't work unless ob_start is not called before, cos your page contains html outputs.
// form.php
<?php ob_start(); ?>
<html>
<body>
<? if (isset($_GET['success'])): ?>
Submit OK! New submit
<? else: ?>
<form name="form" method="post" action="form.php">
<input type="text" name="text_box" size="50"/>
<input type="submit" id="search-submit" value="submit" />
</form>
<? endif; ?>
</body>
</html>
<?php
if(isset($_POST['text_box'])) {
$a = $_POST['text_box'];
$myFile = "textfile.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a+') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $a."\r\n");
fclose($fh);
// send user
header("Location: form.php?success=1");
exit;
}
?>

Simple PHP editor of text files

I have developed a site for a client and he wants to be able to edit a small part of the main page in a backend type of solution. So as a solution, I want to add a very basic editor (domain.com/backend/editor.php) that when you visit it, it will have a textfield with the code and a save button. The code that it will edit will be set to a TXT file.
I would presume that such thing would be easy to code in PHP but google didn't assist me this time so I am hoping that there might be someone here that would point me to the right direction. Note that I have no experience in PHP programming, only HTML and basic javascript so please be thorough in any reply that you provide.
You create a HTML form to edit the text-file's content. In case it get's submitted, you update the text-file (and redirect to the form again to prevent F5/Refresh warnings):
<?php
// configuration
$url = 'http://example.com/backend/editor.php';
$file = '/path/to/txt/file';
// check if form has been submitted
if (isset($_POST['text']))
{
// save the text contents
file_put_contents($file, $_POST['text']);
// redirect to form again
header(sprintf('Location: %s', $url));
printf('Moved.', htmlspecialchars($url));
exit();
}
// read the textfile
$text = file_get_contents($file);
?>
<!-- HTML form -->
<form action="" method="post">
<textarea name="text"><?php echo htmlspecialchars($text); ?></textarea>
<input type="submit" />
<input type="reset" />
</form>
To read the file:
<?php
$file = "pages/file.txt";
if(isset($_POST))
{
$postedHTML = $_POST['html']; // You want to make this more secure!
file_put_contents($file, $postedHTML);
}
?>
<form action="" method="post">
<?php
$content = file_get_contents($file);
echo "<textarea name='html'>" . htmlspecialchars($content) . "</textarea>";
?>
<input type="submit" value="Edit page" />
</form>
You're basically looking for a similar concept to that of a contact-form or alike.
Apply the same principles from a tutorial like this one and instead of emailing using mail check out the file functions from PHP.net.
What did you Google on then? php write file gives me a few million hits.
As in the manual for fwrite():
<?php
$fp = fopen('data.txt', 'w');
fwrite($fp, '1');
fwrite($fp, '23');
fclose($fp);
// the content of 'data.txt' is now 123 and not 23!
?>
But to be honest, you should first pick up a PHP book and start trying. You have posted no single requirement, other than that you want to post a textfield (textarea I mean?) to a TXT file. This will do:
<?php
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == "POST")
{
$handle = fopen("home.txt", 'w') or die("Can't open file for writing.");
fwrite($fh, $_POST['textfield']);
fclose($fh);
echo "Content saved.";
}
else
{
// Print the form
?>
<form method="post">
<textarea name="textfield"></textarea>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
<?php
}
Note that this exactly matches your description. It doesn't read the file when printing the form (so every time you want to edit the text, you have to start from scratch), it does not check the input for anything (do you want the user to be able to post HTML?), it has no security check (everyone can access it and alter the file), and in no way it reads the file for display on the page you want.
First thing to do is capture the information, the simplest way to do this would be the use of a HTML Form with a TEXTAREA:
<form method='post' action='save.php'>
<textarea name='myTextArea'></textarea>
<button type='submit'>Go</button>
</form>
On 'save.php' (or wherever) you can easily see the information sent from the form:
<?php
echo $_POST['myTextArea']
?>
To actually create a file, take a look at the fopen/fwrite commands in PHP, another simplistic example:
<?php
$handle = fopen("myFile.txt","w");
fwrite($handle,$_POST['myTextArea'];
fclose($handle);
?>
WARNING: This is an extremely simplistic answer! You will perhaps want to protect your form and your file, or do some different things.... All the above will do is write EXACTLY what was posted in the form to a file. If you want to specify different filenames, overwrite, append, check for bad content/spam etc then you'll need to do more work.
If you have an editor that is publicly accessible and publishes content to a web page then spam protection is a DEFINITE requirement or you will come to regret it!
If you aren't interested in learning PHP then you should think about getting a professional developer to take care of any coding work for you!
I had a similar need so we created a client-friendly solution called stringmanager.com we use on all our projects and places where CMS is not effective.
From your side, you just need to tag string in the code, i.e. from:
echo "Text he wants to edit";
to:
echo _t("S_Texthewantstoedit");
stringmanager.com takes care about the rest. Your client can manage that particular text area in our online application and sync wherever he wants. Almost forgot to mention, it is completely free.
Can use this line of code :
<form action="" method="post">
<textarea id="test" name="test" style="width:100%; height:50%;"><? echo "$test"; ?></textarea>
<input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>
<?php
$file = "127.0.0.1/test.html";
$test = file_get_contents('1.jpg', 'a');
if (isset($_POST['test'])) {
file_put_contents($file, $_POST["test"]);
};
?>
<form action="" method="post">
<textarea id="test" name="test" style="width:100%; height:50%;"><? echo "$test"; ?></textarea>
<input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>
Haven't had time to finish it, simplest possible, will add more if wanted.

HTML Form to post on php page

Thank you for reading. I'm trying to create a HTML form so that my friend can type text into it and thereafter, updates his web site with whatever is typed into the form. I'm trying to create a HTML form (on a php page) which posts whatever is entered within it's textarea to the home.php file. However, rather than simply do a "one-off" post, I'm trying to make it so that whatever is entered within the textarea saves the data into the home.php file. The home.php file is blank, and the form which I have created is as below:
<form method="post" action="home.php">
<textarea id="element" name="element" rows="15" cols="80" style="width: 80%">
</textarea>
<input type="submit" name="save" value="Save" />
<input type="reset" name="reset" value="Reset" />
</form>
For example, if the words "example" was typed into the form then submitted, the home.php file should have the words "example" written on it.
If you require more details, then please reply. Thank you. :)
<?php
$Input = $_POST['element'];
$FileToUpdate = "home.php";
$fh = fopen($FileToUpdate , 'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $Input);
fclose($fh);
?>
The code above will do what you wish, but will overwrite the page (to append see this reference). But really I think you need to start from basics with a good PHP Tutorial.
This should do what you want:
<?php
$filename = "/path/to/home.php";
$file = fopen( $filename, "w" );
if( $file == false ) {
echo ( "Error in opening new file" );
exit();
}
fwrite( $file, $_POST['element'] );
fclose( $file );
?>
You can read more about file I/O here.
You can use the php $_POST var to fetch the data from a form post.
For example if you want to fetch the field named "element" you can use $_POST['element']
Try the code below to display the text which was typed into the textarea. The code goes into home.php
<?php
echo $_POST['element'];
?>
Likewise you can fetch all required data. Hope this helps. Please go through http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_post.asp for more information.

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