HTML5 form with PHP post method

Question

I am trying my hand at creating an HTML5 form styled with CSS3. However, in the past, I have only used form building tools that generate the PHP action code. I have found such varied examples online, that I want to ask here if someone can give me an example of simple, clean and valid PHP for a 'post' method.

I am going to take advantage of the HTML5 'input' types and attributes, so I would like for the PHP to simply take the data (already validated by the browser through HTML5) and send it to me by email and then display a success message on the website for the sender. Thank you.

Edit: What I am asking for is the code for the PHP file that the form will point to for processing. I know how to do the HTML and CSS, but would appreciate an example of the PHP code to complete the actions I mention above.

Sounds like a plan! Good luck with that. I'm going to do a little more work, then probably hit the sack soon. — Ayman Safadi
– Ayman Safadi, Commented Jan 6, 2012 at 4:05
Well, any basic knowledge about php do you have? And if you have show us some of your mastery in it regarding the "question" and maybe we could help you. — khael
– khael, Commented Jan 6, 2012 at 4:11
Whatever you do, do not trust html5 validation to handle everything for you. It is trivial for an attacker to bypass. — MrGlass
– MrGlass, Commented Jan 6, 2012 at 4:16
Sorry if my question was not clear, I have added to it above. Hopefully, I have asked it correctly now. — user981178
– user981178, Commented Jan 6, 2012 at 4:23

mrtsherman · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-06 04:38:27Z

8

It seems you are confusing html5 with css3 with php. They are all separate technologies that are used together. A form is just a form. You submit it and your php processes it. You need to read about post and get processing in php. For the html side you just submit a form and specify which of the two methods (get or post) you want to use

<!-- none of this has anything to do with html5 or css3 -->
<!-- for method specify POST or GET -->
<form method="POST" action="blah.php" >
   <input type="text" name="foo" value="hello world" />
   <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

//receive the form data in php and do something with it
<?php  $blah = $_POST['foo']; //returns hello world ?>

Handling emailing stuff to yourself is whole other can of worms. Get this down first and then ask that part in a new SO question.

Update - based on update to question by OP

The two things you are looking for are pretty simple. First create a php file that the form submits to. In my example above I chose blah.php. There you can query the global variable $_POST[]. This variable will contain a hash for each input name and input value. In the example above these are foo and hello world.

$message .= $_POST['foo'];

You can then use the php mail method to send an email to yourself.

mail('[email protected]', 'Subject', $message);

And finally whatever you echo out will be returned to the user

echo 'this is blah.php. Thank you for submitting a form!';

edited Jan 6, 2012 at 4:38

answered Jan 6, 2012 at 4:10

mrtsherman

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2 Comments

user981178 Over a year ago

Thanks for the response. I am familiar with the HTML. What I am looking for is the code (that would go in the blah.php file) to which the 'method=post' will point. I would like to gather the data from the 'input' fields, email the data to me and then display a success message on the website for the visitor.

user981178 Over a year ago

Thanks. I figured it was pretty simple, I am just not familiar with PHP and was finding all kinds of different suggestions when searching. I will play with this a bit.

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