Beginner question on PHP (redhat 9) and variables

[Brian]

I am trying to work through a PHP book that I bought a year or so ago,
"Essential PHP" by Christopher Cosentino. In the beginning of the
book, after the Hello, World .php file, you get to a two-parter : a
form that sends it's results to another .php file, that then displays
those results.

Nothing I have been able to do has gotten this type of passing to
work. Checking the URL string for the second page, it properly shows
the values :

http://localhost/PHP/form_results.php?first_name=Brian&last_name=Bibeault&address=My+Address&home_phone=NA&submit=Submit+Query

However, when I refer to $first_name or $address from the second .php
file, they always render as empty (NULL). I cannot figure out why
this relatively simple case is not working; I can define local
variables and output them, however, I cannot pull the variables from
the URL string, so I can't work with forms.

I'm using a default Redhat 9 install, that came with Apache and PHP
preconfigured. I have made a few unrelated changes to Apache (setting
up SSL, etc) - is there something that needs to be done to get PHP to
work with variables?

Any ideas? I'm at my wit's end...

Thanks a lot!

-- Brian

[Eric Bohlman]

Re: Beginner question on PHP (redhat 9) and variables

brian_bibeault@ hotmail.com (Brian) wrote in
news:a0a0ff6.04 01241531.40f734 1c@posting.goog le.com:
[color=blue]
> I am trying to work through a PHP book that I bought a year or so ago,
> "Essential PHP" by Christopher Cosentino. In the beginning of the
> book, after the Hello, World .php file, you get to a two-parter : a
> form that sends it's results to another .php file, that then displays
> those results.
>
> Nothing I have been able to do has gotten this type of passing to
> work. Checking the URL string for the second page, it properly shows
> the values :
>
> http://localhost/PHP/form_results.ph...st_name=Bibeau
> lt&address=My+A ddress&home_pho ne=NA&submit=Su bmit+Query
>
> However, when I refer to $first_name or $address from the second .php
> file, they always render as empty (NULL). I cannot figure out why
> this relatively simple case is not working; I can define local
> variables and output them, however, I cannot pull the variables from
> the URL string, so I can't work with forms.[/color]

That book probably presupposes that PHP's register_global s option is turned
on, which it was by default in earlier versions of PHP but hasn't been for
the last several releases. And it's generally not a good idea to turn it
on unless you really know what you're doing. The preferred way to access
form parameters is to use the $_GET and $_POST arrays; since in your case
you're using the GET method (parameters passed as part of the URL), you'd
want $_GET. Try looking at $_GET['first_name'] or $_GET['address'] and I
think you'll find what you're looking for.

[Brian Bibeault]

Re: Beginner question on PHP (redhat 9) and variables

Eric Bohlman <ebohlman@earth link.net> wrote in message news:<Xns947ABB 1F92605ebohlman omsdevcom@130.1 33.1.4>...[color=blue]
> brian_bibeault@ hotmail.com (Brian) wrote in
> news:a0a0ff6.04 01241531.40f734 1c@posting.goog le.com:
>[color=green]
> > I am trying to work through a PHP book that I bought a year or so ago,
> > "Essential PHP" by Christopher Cosentino. In the beginning of the
> > book, after the Hello, World .php file, you get to a two-parter : a
> > form that sends it's results to another .php file, that then displays
> > those results.
> >
> > Nothing I have been able to do has gotten this type of passing to
> > work. Checking the URL string for the second page, it properly shows
> > the values :
> >
> > http://localhost/PHP/form_results.ph...st_name=Bibeau
> > lt&address=My+A ddress&home_pho ne=NA&submit=Su bmit+Query
> >
> > However, when I refer to $first_name or $address from the second .php
> > file, they always render as empty (NULL). I cannot figure out why
> > this relatively simple case is not working; I can define local
> > variables and output them, however, I cannot pull the variables from
> > the URL string, so I can't work with forms.[/color]
>
> That book probably presupposes that PHP's register_global s option is turned
> on, which it was by default in earlier versions of PHP but hasn't been for
> the last several releases. And it's generally not a good idea to turn it
> on unless you really know what you're doing. The preferred way to access
> form parameters is to use the $_GET and $_POST arrays; since in your case
> you're using the GET method (parameters passed as part of the URL), you'd
> want $_GET. Try looking at $_GET['first_name'] or $_GET['address'] and I
> think you'll find what you're looking for.[/color]

Thanks a lot, Eric, that was it, exactly. Too bad I didn't hear about
this before I reinstalled Apache and PHP (but the newer version have
other security fixes, so it wasn't wasted time).

-- Brian