Using echo inside a HTML input value

Question

I have the following code, copied exactly from a exercise from a PHP book. I am having a problem with the value attribute which contains a php echo statement. According to the book, the first time the page is loaded the input boxes should be empty because the variables won't contain any data. Instead, I see something like this:

<br /><b>Notice</b>:  Undefined variable: investment in     <b>C:\xampp\htdocs\book_apps\ch02_future_value\index.php</b> on line <b>20</b><br />.

Any suggestions?

<form action="display_results.php" method="post">

    <div id="data">
        <label>Investment Amount:</label>
        <input type="text" name="investment"
               value="<?php echo $investment; ?>"/><br />

        <label>Yearly Interest Rate:</label>
        <input type="text" name="interest_rate"
               value="<?php echo $interest_rate; ?>"/><br />

        <label>Number of Years:</label>
        <input type="text" name="years"
               value="<?php echo $years; ?>"/><br />
    </div>

    <div id="buttons">
        <label>&nbsp;</label>
        <input type="submit" value="Calculate"/><br />
    </div>

</form>

It's probably a very old book. Which version of PHP is it teaching? — Pekka
– Pekka, Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 22:42
It's not only empty, it's undefined. Maybe your book was written for a less picky version of PHP. — greut
– greut, Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 22:43
The book is not old, it was published in 2010; it's "Murach's PHP and MySQL". — Tudor Ciotlos
– Tudor Ciotlos, Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 22:59
I replaced the php statement with <?php if (!empty($investement)) {echo $investement;} ?> and it seems to work properly now. — Tudor Ciotlos
– Tudor Ciotlos, Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 23:00
Is $investment ever created/defined? You're probably trying to echo a nonexisting variable. PS: you can use a shorthand of that if-statement: <?php echo (!empty($investment) ? $investment : ""); ?> — BlueCacti
– BlueCacti, Commented Feb 17, 2014 at 8:01

Milad Naseri · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-14 22:43:50Z

1

This is because you are expecting the register_globals directive to be set, while it is not.

This means you have to get $_POST['investement'] instead of $investment and you need to first check if it's been submitted:

$investment = array_key_exists('investment', $_POST) ? $_POST['investment'] : "";

answered Jan 14, 2012 at 22:43

Milad Naseri

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