PHP script not returning a variable

Question

I've taken the following code and placed them in their respective files. I've opened up register.html in Firefox and after entering the required details to the form it loads welcome.php albeit with out the entered information. The loaded page simply reads: "Welcome! You are years old!"

Both files are stored in the same folder.

Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong?

register.html

<html>
<body>

<form action="welcome.php" method="post">
Name: <input type="text" name="fname" />
Age: <input type="text" name="age" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>

</body>
</html>

welcome.php

Welcome <?php echo $_POST["fname"]; ?>!<br />
You are <?php echo $_POST["age"]; ?> years old.

</body>
</html>

Look into the source of the page 'generated' by welcome.php. Do you see php code in it? If yes - your server does not run php engine for .php files. Or are you trying to do it without HTTP server? — Cheery
– Cheery, Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 23:26
You're going to want to read up on cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. Your code demonstrates one by echoing unfiltered, user-supplied data. You'll want to learn how to mitigate this problem as you learn PHP. — Charles
– Charles, Commented Feb 22, 2012 at 5:54

Shea · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-22 09:27:39Z

2

For Apache:

1) Ensure the mime module is on.

2) Try making an .htaccess file in the same directory, with the following contents:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

This will only work if the rewrite module is on.

3) Otherwise, if you have access to the httpd.conf file, try adding that line somewhere in it, without the .htaccess file.

Make sure to restart the server any time you make changes to httpd.conf.

Edit:
I should have also mentioned to view source of the page, to see if the PHP code is in it. which would make these steps necessary.

Another troubleshooting technique is to add <?php error_reporting(E_ALL); ?> at the top of the page, in case PHP actually is running and since there are no errors. If it is disabled, it will enable reporting an Undefined index notice. It seems highly unlikely that it would be the case, but it also seems like a useful step that could help us understand exactly what's going on. Then again, I'm pretty sure PHP just isn't executing.

edited Feb 22, 2012 at 9:27

answered Feb 21, 2012 at 23:43

Shea

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1 Comment

Rob W Over a year ago

+1 PHP is probably not parsed (<? ... ?> becomes hidden in HTML).

dkamins · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21 23:29:46Z

1

Close your body tag.

<body>

not

<body

answered Feb 21, 2012 at 23:29

dkamins

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Comments

Gareth · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21 23:35:06Z

1

I used the code as you posted it exactly, even with the broken body tag, and it still worked.

You should take a look at your apache installation and check that it's working correctly.

I'd recommend you run a simple phpinfo test, which is basically a document (ending with .php) with only this in it:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

edited Feb 21, 2012 at 23:35

Gareth

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answered Feb 21, 2012 at 23:32

bjrnt

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Comments

Adeel Mughal · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21 23:41:14Z

-1

You can use this

<?php
if ($_POST) {
    extract($_POST);
        if (!empty($fname) || !empty($age)) {
            echo 'First Name: '.$fname.' Age: '. $age;
        } else {
            echo 'Enter first name and age';
        }

}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Form</title>
</head>

<body>

<form action="" method="post">
Name: <input type="text" name="fname" />
Age: <input type="text" name="age" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

answered Feb 21, 2012 at 23:41

Adeel Mughal

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4 Comments

Charles Over a year ago

-1, extracting $_GET, $_POST, $_REQUEST is bad practice at the minimum and a security horror show at worst.

Adeel Mughal Over a year ago

you really don't know... it is very useful when we are submitting very big form.... so you dont need to include everytime.. $_post hahahaha

Charles Over a year ago

Yes, but you're also discarding the most logical point for validating untrusted data.

Adeel Mughal Over a year ago

i really don't know why we ignore using of extract, Charles, can you please explain in detail why we don't use extract, what is bad effect of this function?

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