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Access Form Data from PHP
Last modified on May 5th, 2017.
HTML forms are used to allow users to enter their input to the application. The form element can contain multiple fields like input box, select box, text area, checkbox, radio button and more. Using these fields, the user can enter the data and submit to the server-side PHP file. The PHP file name to be called on the submit event will be specified by using the for action attribute.
The form field values are added to the PHP global array based on the request type specified in the form by using the method attribute. If the form method is GET then the form fields values are stored into the $_GET array. If it is POST, then the values are posted with the $_POST array. In the PHP file, the $_GET or $_POST request array is used to access and process the user input submitted via the form.
In this tutorial, I have an example with an HTML form containing the various type of input fields. On submitting this form, the field values are accessed from a PHP code and populated the submitted values in the form.
HTML Form and Prepopulated Values
The following HTML code contains a form with various type of input fields like text input, text area, select box, radio, checkbox. After entering data into these fields, the user can submit it to the PHP file. Since the action attribute is empty, the form submit will process the same page and execute the PHP code to access the form data.
In this example, we use PHP to check the form fields values are not empty to populate them in the form. For populated the selected items in the input combo, we check each item, if it is selected by the user. For example, if the user checked multiple items from the checkbox group, we check each checkbox item if it is in the $_POST array.
<HTML>
<form name="frmTutorial" method="post" action="">
<table border="0" width="500" align="center" class="demo-table">
<tr>
<td>Title<br/><input type="text" class="demoInputBox" name="title" value="<?php if(!empty($_POST['title'])) echo $_POST['title']; ?>"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Description<br/><textarea class="demoInputBox" name="description" cols="10"><?php if(!empty($_POST['description'])) echo $_POST['description']; ?></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Category<br/>
<select name="category" class="demoInputBox">
<option value="Single">Single<option>
<option value="Group">Group<option>
<option value="Team">Team<option>
<option value="All">All<option>
</select>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Tags<br/>
<input type="checkbox" name="tags[]" value="PHP" <?php if(!empty($_POST['tags']) && in_array("PHP",$_POST['tags'])) { ?>checked<?php } ?>> PHP
<input type="checkbox" name="tags[]" value="HTML" <?php if(!empty($_POST['tags']) && in_array("HTML",$_POST['tags'])) { ?>checked<?php } ?>> HTML
<input type="checkbox" name="tags[]" value="FORM" <?php if(!empty($_POST['tags']) && in_array("FORM",$_POST['tags'])) { ?>checked<?php } ?>> FORM
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Active<br/><input type="radio" name="status" value="1" <?php if(!empty($_POST['status'])) { ?>checked<?php } ?>> Yes
<input type="radio" name="status" value="0" <?php if(empty($_POST['status'])) { ?>checked<?php } ?>> No
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<input type="submit" name="submit-form" value="Submit" class="btnSubmit"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
Output
The following screenshot shows the HTML form output after submitting the user data. It populates the submitted values by using PHP code.
Comments to “Access Form Data from PHP”
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Hi, I’m Vincy. I
help build the best websites and I’m available for freelance work.
Hi ! I Too From India Iam Learning From Your Site .I t is More Helpful to me.Now Do Well………Thanks a Lot……………..
Hi Gowtham,
Thank you for your comment.
hello nice work..
i want a script of login through facebook can you provide please.
and a script for serach website using a word..like a tag search option provided in wordpress….thanx if you mail me this code in my mail id…
Hi Sanoj,
Visit this tutorial for facebook login script.
https://phppot.com/php/facebook-open-authentication-in-php/
I have seen lots of tutorial sites on php so far…..but my searching have been stopped now. So thanks a lot for a such kind of code….
Welcome.
such nice site and contents…i have seen so many sites..bt this is one of good site for php i have ever seen.
thank you so much vincy mam for such a beautifull contents and examples.
It is More Helpful to me.and very good tutorial.Thanks a Lot……………..
hi is this what finished ur answer it more help to me thank’s lot im from srilanka
Hi vincy how are you
your tutorial is very helpful to me, how to create log on user login page,
after loged in, user name should be displayed on page. please can give the details.
thank you
Hi Krishna,
Thank you.
Visit this tutorial for creating user login.
https://phppot.com/php/php-login-script-with-session/
Later you can show the logged in user details on webpage from session.
thanks for immediate response
Hi vincy
your tutorial is very helpful to me, create register page and how to create log on user login page after loged in, user name should be displayed on page. using php and mysql(not mysqli)
thank you
This is available in the blog already via different posts. All you need to do is, just download them all and stitch together :-)
where is php code?
Hi Milan,
There is a download button at the end of the article. Click that to download the complete PHP code (project).