HTML Form Values PHP and Spaces

Question

I am working on various projects for my organization that were started by another developer. A good portion of this work involves form processing with PHP.

I was rather surprised to see that for many of the form values, the previous developer used spaces (for example <input type="radio" value="DO NOT ENROLL" name="proceed" /> ). I think I know why he did it - he sends it as it email and makes it easy to display the values in a human readable format without additional processing, but, as someone who is used to 'typical' programming naming conventions (no spaces, camel case, pascal case, and so on), this does make me a little uneasy. Whenever I have processed HTML forms and assigned values, I believe I always tried to following "typical" variable naming conventions, but this could have habit rather than a necessary practice.

Now, I am not saying he is wrong, but I tried to do a little research on the topic and have not reached a definite conclusion. So my question is this - is there anything wrong with including spaces in values assigned to HTML form input elements - particularly when it will be sent over email? If so, what complications may result, and is there a way to properly process them, or would you recommend keeping the actual form values simple (for example, <input type="radio" value="decline" name="proceed" /> and THEN processing them to make them more readable after the form is submitted.

Thanks for any input!

I would defenitely lose the additional spaces... source for errors, typos, ... — Jeff
– Jeff, Commented May 28, 2016 at 16:15
Spaces inside values for inputs is very common. It are values after all, not names. What about a text type input, or even a textarea? I can't think of any good reason not to use spaces inside values... — Pevara
– Pevara, Commented May 28, 2016 at 16:52

Gynteniuxas · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-28 16:52:41Z

5

There is nothing bad, except the only real restriction on what characters can appear in form control names is when a form is submitted with GET

"The "get" method restricts form data set values to ASCII characters.

Source 1 | Source 2

edited May 28, 2016 at 16:52

answered May 28, 2016 at 16:46

Gynteniuxas

7,09918 gold badges41 silver badges59 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Jacco Over a year ago

I'm not sure if html4 references are still helpful.

Gynteniuxas Over a year ago

They are still being used although not as popular as before. Not sure what about HTML5 parsing.

Konstantinos Vytiniotis · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-29 06:34:43Z

1

I would definitely change them to camel case, pascal case or whatever else closer to coding conventions/standards. It may work either way, but...better be safe than sorry.

answered May 29, 2016 at 6:34

Konstantinos Vytiniotis

1508 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

HTML Form Values PHP and Spaces

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related