nor $_POST, $_GET passing my values - php

Question

I have a foreach loop listing the unique codes as links:
<a href="#" class="charcoal_link" value="<?php echo $id_to ?>" style="line-height: 20px;" onclick="showMessageArea(this); return false;">
<?php echo $uniqueCode1?>
<span class="pink_text"><?php echo $uniqueCode2?></span>
<?php echo $uniqueCode3?>
</a>
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $id_to ?>" />
<form id="message_area" style="display:none" method="post" action="<?php echo ADDRESS; ?>messageSent.php?id=<?php echo $id_to ?>">
<tr>
<td>
<input name="message" type="textarea" rows="10" cols="20" value="<?php echo $message ?>" />
</td>
<td>
<input name="Submit" type="submit" value="Send" />
</td>
</tr>
</form>
the above is also in another form tag: <form name = "contacts" method="post">
the action part works fine but in messageSent.php i do:
var_dump($_POST);
var_dump($_GET);
and the output gives me:
NULL
array(1) { ["id"]=> string(2) "36" }
Where is "message"?
"id" contains the wrong id. It is not the id of the unique code I clicked on.

Answer 1

Your HTML is invalid. Among the many errors you have made: You can't have a form inside a table but around a tr. The browser is error correcting by moving the form element to somewhere where it is allowed, and leaving the inputs alone (since inputs can be inside td elements).
Validate. Validate. Validate.
There are so many problems with that fragment of HTML that you have shared, that you would probably benefit from a beginner's guide to authoring webpages.

Answer 2

<a href="#" class="charcoal_link" value="<?php echo $id_to ?>" style="line-height: 20px;" onclick="showMessageArea(this); return false;">
<?php echo $uniqueCode1?>
<span class="pink_text"><?php echo $uniqueCode2?></span>
<?php echo $uniqueCode3?>
</a>
<form id="message_area" style="display:none" method="post" action="<?php echo ADDRESS; ?>messageSent.php?id=<?php echo $id_to ?>">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $id_to ?>" />
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<textarea name="message" rows="10" cols="20"><?php echo $message ?></textarea>
</td>
<td>
<input name="Submit" type="submit" value="Send" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
You cannot have a form inside a form.. you must do them seperate or else in the same form....
I fixed the HTML markup for you