Mysql database sometimes enter blank rows when submitted via php otherwise it works well. How to avoid this?

Question

FORM CODE -

<form method="POST" action="shareexperience.php" id="contactForm"  name="sentMessage" target="formsaved">
<br/><textarea rows="5" cols="40" name="views" id="views" placeholder="Views About Your Profession">
</textarea> <br/>
<textarea rows="5" cols="40" name="advice" id="advice" placeholder="Advice 4 Students">
</textarea> <br/>
Wanna Be A Guide 4 Child 
<input type="radio" id="yes" name="guide" value="Yes" checked> Yes </input>
<input type="radio" id="No" name="guide" value="No" > No </input> 
<br/><input type="text" name="name" id="professionalname" placeholder="Name">
<input type="text" name="email" id="professionalemail" placeholder="Email Id"> <br/>
<br/><input type="submit" value="Share & Nominate" onclick="saveexperience()"> 
</form>


PHP CODE-

<? php
$con=mysql_connect(DB_HOST,DB_USER,DB_PASSWORD) or die("Failed to connect to MySQL: " . mysql_error()); 
 $db=mysql_select_db(DB_NAME,$con) or die("Failed to connect to MySQL: " .mysql_error());
 //inserting Record to the database
 $name = $_POST['name']; 
 $email = $_POST['email'];
$views = $_POST['views'];
$advice = $_POST['advice'];
$guide=$_POST['guide'];
 $query = "INSERT INTO professionals(name,email,views,advice,guide)VALUES('$name','$email', '$views','$advice','$guide')"; 
 $result = mysql_query($query); 
mysql_close($con); 
?>

Target formsaved has been used to avoid redirection by using html tag iframe as followed below-

<iframe name="formsaved" height="30px" width="300px" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"> </iframe>

Sometimes data enter fines but sometimes it doesn't work You can check my website as well - guidance4future.in/nominate

Note:- onclick has been used to disable one of the html tags in the page further...

Thanks in advance...

WARNING: If you're just learning PHP, please, do not learn the obsolete mysql_query interface. It's awful and has been removed in PHP 7. A replacement like PDO is not hard to learn and a guide like PHP The Right Way helps explain best practices. Your user parameters are not properly escaped and you have severe SQL injection bugs here. — tadman
– tadman, Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 15:42
In your table set field not null. And in your php check data.. if(empty($name) || empty($email) || empty($views) || empty($advice) || empty($guide)) die; — Maxi Schvindt
– Maxi Schvindt, Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 15:42

Jon Story · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-25 15:46:06Z

2

Firstly, please do some sanity checks on your code! Someone could come along and delete your entire database right now...

I suspect that what's happening is that someone is clicking submit without entering anything in the form: in which case your code will just insert a blank row.

Do some checks first:

$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "database");

/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
    printf("Connection failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
    exit();
}

$name = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['name']);
$email = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['email']);
$views = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['views']);
$advice = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['advice']);
$guide = $mysqli->real_escape_string$_POST['guide']);

// Check for null fields
if( empty($name) || empty($email) || empty($views) || empty($advice) || empty($guide))
{
    print "Please fill in all fields!";
    // Show the form again here
}
else
{
     $query = "INSERT INTO professionals(name,email,views,advice,guide)VALUES('$name','$email', '$views','$advice','$guide')";
     $mysqli->query($query);
}

answered Apr 25, 2016 at 15:46

Jon Story

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2 Comments

Strawberry Over a year ago

See prepared statements

Jon Story Over a year ago

Yeah that's probably worth looking into for the OP - I've not used PHP for a couple of years so it sounds like I'm behind current best practice

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:31:13Z

0

You should check the data before it is submitted to the database to make sure that all the fields were filled out properly.

if (!(empty($_POST['name']) || empty($_POST['email']) || empty($_POST['views']) || empty($_POST['advice']) || empty($_POST['guide']))){
    // do your stuff here
} else {
    // error stuff
}

Additionally, as mentioned in this comment, you should look into using PDO for your database operations.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:31

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Apr 25, 2016 at 15:48

shamsup

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