A better way to send PHP forms?

Creating PHP forms without having to declare each field?

[tokey666]

Hey everyone.

I have been using PHP email forms for quite a while and always have the same problem. It takes forever to build because I have to not only create the form fields, but then I have to declare them FOR the message as well.

For example:

if(!empty($_POST['email'])) {
$email = $_POST['email'];
$emailfrom = $_POST['email'];
} else {
$email = "";
$emailfrom = "NO RETURN SPECIFIED";
}//end if email
$msg = "Todays Date:   \t ".date("M d, Y")."\n";
$msg .= "Name:       \t ".$_POST['fname']."\n";
$msg .= "Email:       \t ".$email."\n";
$msg .= "Address:       \t ".$_POST['address']."\n";
$msg .= "City:       \t ".$_POST['city']."\n";
$msg .= "State:       \t ".$_POST['state']."\n";
$msg .= "Zip:       \t ".$_POST['zip']."\n";
$msg .= "Phone:       \t ".$_POST['phone']."\n";
$msg .= "Message:     \t\n ".$_POST['message']."\n\n";
$to = "$sendthisto";
$subject = "Contact Form from Website";
$headers = "From: ".$emailfrom."\n\n";
mail($to, $subject, $msg, $headers);
} else { ?>
etc etc

And for long forms, this is the pits! Is there a better way to do this instead of creating a new line for $msg every time? Maybe it will cycle through the entire form, pull out the information and then post it going by input Name or something?

[rocknbil]

Maybe something like

$input = Array (
'fname' => 'Name',
'email' => 'Email',
'address' => 'Address',
'city' => 'City',
'zip' => 'Zip',
'phone' => 'Phone Number',
'message' => 'Your Message'
);

$msg = "Today's Date: \t ".date("M d, Y")."\n";

foreach ($input as $key=>$value) {
$msg .= "$value \t".$_POST[$key]."\n";
}

This way $input goes at the top of your script or in a constant or configuration variable/include, somewhere easy to access and change, and will affect all mail or response page content.

The odd duck there is $email, but you can figure a way around that. You should not be using uncleansed $_POST variables anyway. Generally I cleanse these and store them in a new array and step through that instead of $_POST.

[tokey666]

Thanks for the reply!

However, I would still have to manually create that $input array. That is what I am trying to avoid. Having to create all those lines.

I was able to find this code and adapted it:

$form_fields = array_keys($HTTP_GET_VARS);
for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($form_fields); $i++) {
$thisField = $form_fields[$i];
 $thisValue = $HTTP_GET_VARS[$thisField];
 $msg .= $thisField ." = ". $thisValue ."\n";
}

Attributed here: <snip>

But am having a problem adapting it to my form. Suggestions?

[edited by: dreamcatcher at 6:31 am (utc) on July 3, 2009]
[edit reason] No urls please! [/edit]

[tokey666]

DOH! I'm so silly....

$HTTP_GET_VARS

should be

$HTTP_POST_VARS

And it works perfectly now.

[coopster]

The HTTP_* superglobals are deprecated, you should be using $_GET and $_POST superglobals instead.

Predefined Variables [php.net]
Superglobals [php.net]