Echo back from PHP include file not working in IE - php

I have a simple form that posts signup info to a mailchimp account. The form and messages back from the include file work perfectly in Firefox, but nothing is happening in IE. If no email address is entered, it should come back with an error just like it does in Firefox. I have no idea how to trouble shoot this type of issue. If there is an error, it should echo back the error into a div on the form which again works perfectly in Firefox and nothing happens in IE. It makes no sense to me. I need to have this working by today. I have tried moving the files to the same location as the index.php, changed permissions, etc. with no luck. I need some major help! I can't even get this piece of code to come back in IE: if(!$_GET['email']){ return "No email address provided"; }
You can try the form at: www.terrybryan.com/index.php
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<title>Ajax Mailing List Sign Up System</title>
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="css/default.css" />
</head>
<body>
<form id="signup" action="<?=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="get" style="width:250px;">
<fieldset>
<label for="email" id="email-label">Email Address</label>
<input type="text" name="email" id="email" />
<label for="zipcode" id="zipcode-label">Zip Code</label>
<input type="text" name="zipcode" id="zip" />
<label for="events" id="events-label">Receive future info from us?</label>
Yes<input type="radio" name="events" value="Yes" checked="checked" />
No<input type="radio" name="events" value="No" />
<label for="hearabout" id="hearabout-label">How did you hear about us?</label>
<select name="hearabout" id="hearabout">
<option value="Ice">Ice</option>
<option value="Radio">Radio</option>
<option value="Friend">Friend</option>
<option value="Door Hanger">Door Hanger</option>
</select>
<br /><br />
<input type="image" src="i/join.jpg" name="submit" value="Join" class="btn" alt="Join" />
<br /><br />
<div id="response">
<? require_once 'store-address.php'; if($_GET['submit']){ echo storeAddress(); } ?>
</div>
</fieldset>
</form>
<!-- Some fancy Ajax stuff to store the sign up info. If you don't want to use it, just delete it and the form will still work -->
</body>
</html>
and here is the include file that the message comes back from:
<?php
/*///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Part of the code from the book
Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO, and Beyond
by Aarron Walter (aarron#buildingfindablewebsites.com)
http://buildingfindablewebsites.com
Distrbuted under Creative Commons license
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////*/
require_once('MCAPI.class.php');
function storeAddress(){
// Validation
if(!$_GET['email']){ return "No email address provided"; }
if(!preg_match("/^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*#[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*$/i", $_GET['email'])) {
return "Email address is invalid";
}
// grab an API Key from http://admin.mailchimp.com/account/api/
$api = new MCAPI('********');
// grab your List's Unique Id by going to http://admin.mailchimp.com/lists/
// Click the "settings" link for the list - the Unique Id is at the bottom of that page.
$list_id = "********";
// Merge variables are the names of all of the fields your mailing list accepts
// Ex: first name is by default FNAME
// You can define the names of each merge variable in Lists > click the desired list > list settings > Merge tags for personalization
// Pass merge values to the API in an array as follows
$mergeVars = array('ZIPCODE'=>$_GET['zipcode'],
'EVENTS'=>$_GET['events'],
'HEARABOUT'=>$_GET['hearabout']);
if($api->listSubscribe($list_id, $_GET['email'], $mergeVars) === true) {
// It worked!
return 'Success! Check your email to confirm sign up.';
}else{
// An error ocurred, return error message
return 'Error: ' . $api->errorMessage;
}
}
// If being called via ajax, autorun the function
//if($_GET['ajax']){ echo storeAddress(); }
?>
Does anyone have any idea why this simple form would not work in IE like it does in Firefox and other browsers?
Thanks,
T Bryan

Here's why: When using an image button in IE, when you click it, instead of sending $_POST['nameofbutton'], it sends $_POST['nameofbutton_x'] and $_POST['nameofbutton_y']. Now, Firefox sends both $_POST['nameofbutton_x'] and $_POST['nameofbutton_y'] as well as $_POST['nameofbutton']. The _x and _y values store the x and y coordinates of where you clicked on the image button, so you can do different things depending on where the user clicked for doing something like an image map.
So, when you test for if($_GET['submit']){ echo storeAddress(); } ?> you don't get it on IE because IE doesn't have $_GET['submit'] it has $_GET['submit_x'] and $_GET['submit_y'], so you must test for $_GET['submit_x'] or y.
Least I think the format was _x and _y, might be slightly different. Easy way to tell is to print_r($_GET);
Oh, also, by the way, be careful using Get for forms, particularly if they have to transfer a lot of potentially long information, IE has like a 255 character limit in the address bar and anything after that will get cut off and left out of $_GET or malformed. Best to use Post for forms. Get is only really good for things like structuring links for a CMS controller or registration email verification links and all that.

I suggest editing your html code for submit:
From:
<input type="image" src="i/join.jpg" name="submit" value="Join" class="btn" alt="Join" />
To:
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Join" class="btn" alt="Join" />
type submit is generally reliable, other types (including, sadly, , image submits, etc) are often implemented differently in different browsers. Another thing not to rely on is the contents of submit, since ie in some cases submits html instead of the value (generally with things other than the standard submit value), or submit multiple forms on the page, annoying things like that.
So in general, it is best to go with a simple <input type='submit' ...etc, and go with a simple check for the -presence- of the submit and don't be too specific about what the submit contains.

I would suggest a very simple approach, style your button using CSS, or do <img src="path/to/your/image" alt="my image button" />

Since PHP runs on the server, it should (generally) provide the same response to the browser for the same input. Since the form uses the "get" method, the input is entirely specified by the URL (plus headers, including cookies, though those don't appear to factor in here).
In any case, when you submit the form from Firefox, you should see that the URL of the form submission appears in the Firefox address bar. If the PHP script issues a redirect as a response, then the URL may only appear very briefly. Either way, it should be available in your browser history.
If you can copy that URL into the address bar of IE and submit the same request from IE (again, assuming cookies aren't involved), then you should get pretty much the same response from the server. If you're not seeing the same thing in the browser window of IE as you do in Firefox, there may be several reasons.
View the source. (View -> View Source). If it's completely blank, the script probably failed to execute properly.
If you have access to the server error logs, check for an error message related to your request. A sane PHP implementation (in cooperation with a sane server) will provide error logging. Sometimes this is really the only way to know what's going on with your script. If you have access to the web server through an FTP account, you will probably find the logs at or near the top level.
If you don't have access to the server, you can still get a low-level view of what's happening with your request through the use of Firebug Lite or Fiddler2.

Related

Automate a webpage testing

I want to automate some tests on my webpage, mainly filling out forms with invalid data and see what happens. Is is possible with Javascript? If not, is it possible with PHP? The script should handle sessions and cookies.
Here is a very simple example that has 3 pages. In the first you should enter 'x' and click submit, in the second you should enter '3' and click submit. If that was successful the last page should show you "you got it!". Can that be automated so that I load a script and see the "you got it" right away? Please note: This has no cookies\sessions for simplicity, but I want an answer that dose support those.
I have tried making another page with iframe that includes the site above. But could not gain access to the elements inside the iframe
I have tried making an PHP script using cURL, that sends requests, but I could not forward cookies.
I have posted an comment on this answer but didn't get a reply.
For your convenience, here is the code: (you don't really need it, but just in case..)
index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
First page: please enter x
<form method="post" action="next.php">
<input type="text" id="id" name="id" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
<html>
next.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST) && isset($_POST['id']) && $_POST['id']!='x'){
echo '<script>window.location = "http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~kahilm/myNavigator/";</script>';
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
Second page: please enter 3
<form method="POST" action="last.php">
<input type="text" name="code" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</html>
last.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST) && isset($_POST['code']) && $_POST['code']=='3'){
echo 'you got it!';
}else{
echo 'you sent something, please make it a "3"... :)';
}
?>
Consider the Selenium browser automation framework - it allows you to navigate through pages, verify conditions, fill in forms. Very stable, very mature.
http://seleniumhq.org/
You should look at programatically controlling a browser to perform this type of test. Selenium is a popular option, and has PHP bindings mentioned in the documentation (although I usually use Perl or Python).
PHP-based solution: Won't test from the front-end, only the server-backend, hence won't emulate real input.
JS: Will not persist across pages.
Hence, you are either looking for a browser-extension or a standalone utility separate from the browser entirely.
You could try:
Sikuli which however is generic, not targeted at web-pages, but at GUIs in general.
WatiN or Selenium

Display error messages in html

I want to display warning messages in html. This code shows two text boxes named "company" and "name". con.php connects to the database and inserts the information. But if I enter nothing, then the values are still getting stored in the database as null. I want user to know that he shouldn't leave the fields blank by displaying some messages and also a warning should appear if the given company already exists in the database. How do I implement that?
<html>
<head>
<title>store in a database</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<h2>company Store</h2>
<form name="form1" method="post" action="con.php">
<p>company:<input type="text" name="company">
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Name: <input type="text" name="name" size="40">
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<input type="submit" value="Save">
<input type="button" onclick="window.close()" value="cancel">
</form>
</body>
While an alert message cannot be produced without JavaScript, you could take advantage of HTML5's placeholder attribute to inform the user of this message:
<input type="text" placeholder="You must enter something in this field"! name="whatever" id="whatever" />
And couple this with JavaScript:
var inputElem = document.getElementById('whatever');
var form = document.getElementsByTagName('form')[0];
form.onsubmit = function(){
if (inputElem.value = '' || inputElem.value.length < 1){
alert('You must enter some actual information');
return false;
}
};
However JavaScript can be edited by the users, via Firebug, Web Inspector, Dragonfly...or by simply creating a new html file and submitting the form to the same source from the action attribute of the form element. Therefore your form-handling script must be sanitised and checked on the server as well as the client; client-side checking is a convenience to the user (to prevent unnecessary page-reloads, submissions and so on), it is not a security feature, and should not be used, or mistaken, as such.
Best way is using Ajax if you want to do it at the same page. You need to read some tutorials on it. It's not that easy to explian here.
If reloading or redirecting to other page is ok for you, you should compare the submitted form value with the values in the database in a PHP script which is redirected from form submission (action url). If values doesn't match and not empty, store the values to database and redirect to a page like the list of companies or "company successfully created" message page. If values match with an old record or empty, redirect back to the same form page with a flag (something like form.php?error=1 etc.) and show the proper error message.
Also you can use JavaScript for immediate alerts. But you should always do the same checks at PHP side since JavaScript can be disabled in browsers.
In con.php you should do your data validation and return the markup (or redirect to page describing the error).
So, check for empty fields, and if the exists redirect the user to a page saying the fields can not be empty (and probably allow them to enter new values).
If the data entered is ok, check the database for duplicates and if they exist, redirect the user to a page saying that the company already exists (and again probably allow the user to correct the data).
You can not do it only with HTML.
You need to add a form validation (to prevent empty strings), HTML5 form validation can do that for you (check http://www.broken-links.com/2011/03/28/html5-form-validation/), but not all browser support it, so you will need to use JavaScript to validate the form.
There are JavaScript libraries that will take an old browser and make it behave like a browser that support HTML5 (check http://www.matiasmancini.com.ar/jquery-plugin-ajax-form-validation-html5.html).
You will also need to retrieve the companies already in your database and check them against the user input and alert him if needed.
On top of that you will need to validate the data in your PHP before inserting it to the database (check for empty string for example).

how to Pass Parameters to php page without having to load it

how can i pass parameters from an html page(map.html) to a php(createxml.php) without having to open the php page? Im incorporating googlemaps in html page(map.html) so i want the users to enter data on a form on the html page which will be sent to php(createxml.php) which in turn will connect to mySQL DB and create an xml format of the response the html page uses this xml output to create positions on the map since it contains longitude and latitude.
I have used the following code in the heading of the php page(createxml), but it shows the contents of php file for a brief moment redirecting me to map.html
Thanks for your time, i can post all the code if needed.
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://localhost/map.html/">
It's quite simple with AJAX, using jQuery you don't have to know much about it :)
So simply import the latest jQuery Library.
Then you have your form:
<form id="my_form">
<input type="text" name="param1" />
<input type="text" name="param2" />
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="do_stuff" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
and somewhere beneath that, you just paste this tiny javascript-function, which handles the submit of the form:
<script>
$('#my_form').submit(function(){
var post_params = $('#my_form').serialize();
$('#waiting').show();
$.post('the_page_you_are_on.php', post_params, function(data) {
$('#waiting').hide();
return false;
})
});
</script>
(The element (div, p...) with the id "waiting" could e.g. contain one of those fancy ajax loading images, but is not neccessary! :) If you want one to be shown, find one via google, set it as the background image of the #waiting-element and set its display to none (CSS)).
The function itself just calls the page you're on and then you've got the form variables in your post-array, so the top of your page could look something like this:
<?php
if(isset($_POST['action'])) {
switch($_POST['action']) {
case 'do_stuff' :
$param1 = $_POST['param1'];
$param2 = $_POST['param2'];
//do some DB-stuff etc.
break;
}
}
?>
I hope that helps!
It's a terrible idea, but because you don't want to use AJAX you could put the PHP in a frame and reload just that portion. Again, awful idea, but the closest you're going to get without using AJAX.
On a useful note though, AJAX is literally just one function in javascript. It's not hard at all to learn.
If you are just trying to pass parameters to a PHP page from the web browser, there are other ways to do it beyond 'Ajax'. Take a look at this page and view the source code (be sure to view the source of the included javascript file: http://hazlo.co/showlist.php?s=chrome&i=4e289d078b0f76b750000627&n=TODO
It uses an extremely basic method of changing the src of an image element, but passes information to the web server (PHP page) in the querystring of the image request. In this example I actually care about the results, which are represented as an image, but it sounds like you are just trying to pass data to the server, so you can return a 1 pixel image if you like. BTW, don't be fooled by the URL that is being used, a server rule is telling apache to process a specific PHP file when check it,GIF is requested.
You should play with it and use firebug or chrome's built in debugger to watch the requests that are being sent to the server.
You can't get any results from a PHP-script if you don't request it and process the output. If you dont't want to leave the current page, you have to use AJAX!
"but it shows the contents of php file for a brief moment" The reason is, that your browser first needs to load the entire page, then start the META-redirect. You don't need a redirect to load data from the server, but if you really want to, you should HTTP-headers for redirect.
Ok guys after hours of headache i finally found the solution! Basically i called my xmlproduce.php from inside my map.html, lemme explain so maybe will help others:
maps.html contained a googlmap API Javascript function which called my createxml.php called second.php
GDownloadUrl("second.php", function(data) )
what i did was i tweaked this call to second.php by adding some parameters in the URL like:
GDownloadUrl("second.php?strt="+ysdate+"/"+msdate+"/"+dsdate+"&end="+yedate+" /"+medate+"/"+dedate+"&id="+ide, function(data)
which is sending the parameters needed by second.php, so after that i made a small html form which called the script of googlemap api on the same file(map.html) to pass the parameters from the form to the GDownloadUrl i mentioned above, the code of the form is :
form method="get" action="">
IMEI: <input type="text" id="id" name="id" size="25" /> <br />
Start Date: <input type="text" id="ysdate" name="ysdate" size="4" value="2000" /> <input type="text" id="msdate" name="ysdate" size="1" /> <input type="text" id="dsdate" name="dsdate" size="1" /> <br/>
End Date: <input type="text" id="yedate" name="yedate" size="4" /> <input type="text" id="medate" name="ysdate" size="1" /> <input type="text" id="dedate" name="dedate" size="1" /> <br/>
<input type="button" value="submit" onClick="load()" />
</form>
afterwards i put extra constraints on the form for the values allowed.
Thanks everybody for the help, and you can always ask if somebody needs some clarification.

firefox having "#;" in the addressbar

Why does firefox(haven't tested in another browser) has problems loading form values when a #; is in the addressbar?
If i have an <input type='radio' checked="checked">, the presence of this element in the addressbar may lead to the input not actually getting checked(as expected)
How can i avoid this behavior?
Example code:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="min-height:100%;">
<head>
<title>stuff2test</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
</head>
<body class="popup" >
<form action="" id="frm">
add #; to addressbar, and refresh
<?php $rnd = mt_rand(1, 4); ?>
<label for="r_v1"> <input id="r_v1" type="radio" value="v1" <?php if($rnd==1){ echo 'checked="checked"';}?> name="r"></input> checked?</label>
<label for="r_v2"> <input id="r_v2" type="radio" value="v2" <?php if($rnd==2){ echo 'checked="checked"';}?> name="r"></input> checked?</label>
<label for="r_v3"> <input id="r_v3" type="radio" value="v3" <?php if($rnd==3){ echo 'checked="checked"';}?> name="r"></input> checked?</label>
</form>
<button onClick="getElementById('frm').submit();" type="button">submit</button>
<br/>
RND: <?php echo $rnd;?>
<?php
if($rnd>0 && $rnd<=3){
echo "Checkbox {$rnd} should be checked";
}
?>
<br/>
<?php
var_dump($_GET);
?>
</body>
</html>
Edit2: cleaned the code a little, added an echo
You have links like this, right?
link
And you do something with them using JavaScript (here: jQuery too), right?
$('a').click(function() {
alert(1);
});
You need to add return false at the end of the function.
$('a').click(function() {
alert(1);
return false;
});
Edit:
After looking at your code... Do NOT use inline JavaScript!
You need some element that will do something on click? Just add class, ID - you name it... so you can distinguish between elements and then...
$('a.my_class').click(function() { // $('a#my_id')
// All you need to do.
return false; // For preventing browser to add '#' after current link (if you have 'href="#"').
});
From reading the comments on the question, the answer seems clear.
The problem is that Firefox tries to remember the state of the form when you reload the page, which includes which checkboxes are checked and which aren't. So even though you vary the default values in the HTML on reload, Firefox sees it as the same form and ignores the defaults set in the HTML in favor of what it has saved from before the reload.
I've heard you can disable this behavior by supplying the HTTP header Cache-Control: no-store, or by specifying autocomplete="off" on the form elements. But I have not tested either solution personally. Or you could use Javascript to reset the form on page load (either with the form object's reset() or by explicitly setting each field's value).
The hash (#) is a special character in a URL. Anything that comes after it is not sent to the server, so if you're using hashed URLs you really need to use POST (or an AJAX request to a non hashed URL if GET is essential) to send your form data.
An alternative is to implement something similar to Google's _escaped_fragment_ to ensure that the contents of your URL after the hash will be sent to the server.
I use that "trick" massively, and don't have problems, because I use the input type="submit" control.
If you replace the line:
<button onClick="getElementById('frm').submit();" type="button">submit</button>
with
<input type="submit" value="submit" />
solve the problem without changing the anchors and without touching the javascript code.
Good Luck!

Get POST response from a url and print response to page?

I'm trying to get a POST response from a url and I can not get the response to print to my html page instead it just redirects me to the url in the action with the response.
Is there a way to grab the response with html? php?
Code of html page i'm using
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<form
method="post"
action="http://poster.decaptcher.com/"
enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="hidden" name="function" value="login">
<input type="text" name="username" value="client">
<input type="text" name="password" value="qwerty">
<input type="file" name="upload">
<input type="text" name="upload_to" value="0">
<input type="text" name="upload_type" value="0">
<input type="submit" value="Send">
</form>
</head><body></body></html>
Note: The url in the action will only show the response and nothing else is shown on the page.
Let's see if I can give this a try, because you seem to be a bit confused about how an HTML form works.
First and foremost, your website looks like so, correct?
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<form
method="post"
action="http://poster.decaptcher.com/"
enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="hidden" name="function" value="login">
<input type="text" name="username" value="client">
<input type="text" name="password" value="qwerty">
<input type="file" name="upload">
<input type="text" name="upload_to" value="0">
<input type="text" name="upload_type" value="0">
<input type="submit" value="Send">
</form>
</head><body></body></html>
One thing to point out before we explain an HTML form, is that you have your form in the <head> of the webpage. Any element which is supposed to be seen by the user (or anything that you want to appear within the browser's main viewing area) should be in the <body>. Failure to do this puts the browser into a "quirks mode", where it actually doesn't know what you're talking about and it makes its best guess to try and build the website that it thinks you wanted. Mind you that modern browsers are very good guessers, but you should still re-write it as:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<form
method="post"
action="http://poster.decaptcher.com/"
enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="hidden" name="function" value="login">
<input type="text" name="username" value="client">
<input type="text" name="password" value="qwerty">
<input type="file" name="upload">
<input type="text" name="upload_to" value="0">
<input type="text" name="upload_type" value="0">
<input type="submit" value="Send">
</form>
</body>
</html>
As far as explaining the <form> tag... When you submit a form in HTML, it actually loads the other website. It doesn't secretly send data in the background, it will take you away from the page you're viewing and take you to the page that you are sending the data to. At first this may sound silly. Why should it take you away from the page you're viewing just to send the data to another website? If you wanted to be redirected after sending the data, you'd redirect them there after sending the data.
The reason it's done this way is to greatly simplify the HTTP protocol. Whenever you load any website, you send and HTTP request. This request contains butt-loads of information. Among this information is:
Your IP address
What browser you're using
The page you were last visiting
How you accessed this page (clicked a link or typed the URL into the address bar)
The page you want to view (is it index.html or mysite.html?)
Any cookies related to that server
Any POST information (extra information which the server may or may not have asked for)
Every time the server receives one of these requests, it looks at all of the information and decides what to do. Usually a server will just look at the page you want to view and send it to you. Sometimes the page you want to view will need some extra work before it's ready to show, though. For instance, if a page ends in .php then it will search through the page for <?php, and everything after that point will be executed as a script. Only the output of the script is sent to the person who requested the page, not the script itself.
If you were to send your POST information to a website, wait 10 minutes, THEN go to the website, it would have no way of remembering that it was you who sent the post information before or what information you sent. Web servers have a very short attention span. For that reason if you sent a form to log into a website, then waited 10 minutes, then tried to view a member's only page- it would forget that you were logged in. For this reason it sends you the page as you're submitting the form. It does it while it still remembers that you're logged in, before it has a chance to forget. There's a good chance that the page it sends you will include a cookie which you can use to remind the server you were logged in next time you request a page.
If this made sense, then you should understand what happens when you submit a form. It doesn't just take your information and give it to the server. It sends that information to the server as part of an entire request, then the server sends you back a webpage and your browser displays that webpage. There is really only one way to send data to a server without redirecting you to that server afterwards. There are multiple ways to do this trick, however. You have to send a "dummy request", requesting a webpage with certain POST data, but ignoring the webpage that's returned.
In your example, you wanted to send data to http://poster.decaptcher.com. To do this without redirecting the user to http://poster.decaptcher.com, your easiest solution would be to use javascript and AJAX. Javascript has certain functions that allow you to send an HTTP request without reloading the page, then you let the javascript determine what to do with the page that's returned.
This is generally used when you want to reload a part of a webpage without reloading the whole thing. For instance, if you have a chat program and you want to update the chat window without refreshing the entire page. The javascript would request a webpage which contains ONLY the new lines of chat, minus any <html>, <head>, or <body> tags. It then takes those lines and displays them in the chat window.
You can, however, use AJAX to request a page and then ignore what's returned instead of display it on the page. By doing this you will have sent the POST data but not redirect the user.
Another option is to send the request to a third website, which can then send its own dummy request. For instance, submit the form to a PHP page that you own. The PHP script can then tell your server to send a dummy request to http://poster.decaptcher.com and ignore the response, then you can send them a webpage containing whatever you want.
Now that I've described both of these processes in adequate detail, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out exactly how to do these. =)
The page refresh on submitted form is the default behavior of HTML.
For people who need to display the response into the same page without refresh, they will want to use Ajax. Here is how it could be done with jQuery:
$('#the_form').submit(function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
the_form = $(this);
$('#response_container').load(
the_form.attr('action')
, the_form.serialize()
);
})
the action defines the redirect to that page. If you want to catch the response, make your own script and place it in between the two. This is a bad way of doing it though. We developers call it hack coding. lol.
Not quite sure what you want to do. If you want to show the POST content on the page, just do this:
print_r($_POST);
If you want to see what is getting POSTed to the action URL, and you don't have access to that URL, just use the HTTP Headers plugin for Firefox.
action should go to a PHP file belonging to you! ie - action="/ProcessMyForm.php"
On that file, simply use $_POST and those form elements are in there, indexed by name, in an associative array.
Also - it may have been accidental, but post parameters dont go up in the URL like get, they are "behind the scenes" (invisible to the user) and also capable of being far larger.
PS - if you want to go to that other site afterwards, use header("Redirect: other-website-here.com")
First of all, mention your question specifically. If you want to fetch data from a URL than you can't use the form method="post". If you want to fetch data from URL, you have to use method "get". Calling print_r($_GET) can be used to retrieve data from HTML page to controller page.

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