Passing form data from one web page to another with PHP - php

Question

i found few similar questions here but from answers i didn't get the whole picture of how should work.
I have a subscription form in a page:
<form method="post" action="index.php/register">
<fieldset>
<input type="text" id="first_name" name="first_name" />
<input type="text" id="last_name" name="last_name" />
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" />
<input type="text" id="address" name="address" />
<input id="submit" type="submit" value=">>" />
</fieldset>
</form>
when a user a user click the submit button is lead to a page with the full registering form, where i need to have few fields populated with the data sent from previous page form. this is a preview of few fields from the form of the second page:
<form id="register" name="form1" method="post" action="send_contact.php">
<fieldset>
<li><label>*First Name</label>
<input type="text" id="first_name" name="first_name" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Last Name</label>
<input type="text" id="last_name" name="last_name" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Email</label>
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Confirm Email</label>
<input type="text" id="confirm-email" name="confirm_email" />
</li>
<li>
<label>Street Address</label>
<input type="text" id="address" name="address" />
<li class="full-width">
<input id="submit" type="submit" value="Register" />
</li>
</fieldset>
</form>
the php is not my strong point, so if you can be more detailed in answer is great for me.
thanks!

Answer 1

I would say for security reasons, do not use Get method "$_GET[]" as people described, keep POST as you have it.
All you need to do on register/ page is get all the values passed on using the POST method and populate them into your HTML. So the second form should look like:
<form id="register" name="form1" method="post" action="send_contact.php">
<fieldset>
<li><label>First Name</label>
<input type="text" id="first_name" name="first_name" value="<?=$_POST[first_name]?>" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Last Name</label>
<input type="text" id="last_name" name="last_name" value="<?=$_POST[last_name]?>" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Email</label>
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" value="<?=$_POST[email]?>" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Confirm Email</label>
<input type="text" id="confirm-email" name="confirm_email" />
</li>
<li>
<label>Street Address</label>
<input type="text" id="address" name="address" value="<?=$_POST[address]?>" />
<li class="full-width">
<input id="submit" type="submit" value="Register" />
</li>
</fieldset>
</form>
Above, I am using shorthand version of "echo" and php tags, if you do not have that enabled under php.ini, please change "" to "; ?>. Also, script will not populate "confirm" email as I assume you would like the user to retype that.
That should do it.

Answer 2

There are basically two methods
Store the values of the first form in a cookie, and the process code can retrieve the values from the cookie
make the form action 'Get' so that the data is passed on to the next page.

Answer 3

You can use the $_POST values from the first form in the page handling the submit of the first form and print them in the new form as:
<?php
echo '<input type="text" id="email" name="email" value="' . htmlentities($_POST['email']) . '"/>
?>

Answer 4

<form method="post" action="register.php">
<fieldset>
<input type="text" id="first_name" name="first_name" />
<input type="text" id="last_name" name="last_name" />
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" />
<input type="text" id="address" name="address" />
<input id="submit" type="submit" value=">>" />
</fieldset>
</form>
register.php
<form id="register" name="form1" method="post" action="send_contact.php">
<fieldset>
<li><label>*First Name</label>
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $_POST['first_name'];?>" id="first_name" name="first_name" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Last Name</label>
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $_POST['last_name'];?>" id="last_name" name="last_name" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Email</label>
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $_POST['email'];?>" id="email" name="email" />
</li>
<li>
<label>*Confirm Email</label>
<input type="text" id="confirm-email" name="confirm_email" />
</li>
<li>
<label>Street Address</label>
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $_POST['address'];?>" id="address" name="address" />
<li class="full-width">
<input id="submit" type="submit" value="Register" />
</li>
</fieldset>
</form>
Finally service the post in send_contact.php as you wish