PHP form - required fields

PHP Form - Required Fields

In this chapter we will introduce how to set the required fields and error messages of the form.

PHP - Required fields

In the previous chapter we have introduced the validation rules of the table, we can see "Name", "E-mail", and "Gender" fields are required and each field cannot be empty.

Field

If in the previous chapter, all input fields are optional.

In the following code we have added some new variables: $nameErr, $emailErr, $genderErr, and $websiteErr.. These error variables will be displayed on required fields. We also added an if else statement for each $_POST variable. These statements will check if the $_POST variable is empty (using PHP's empty() function). If it is empty, the corresponding error message will be displayed. If not empty, the data will be passed to the test_input() function:

<?php
// 定义变量并默认设为空值
$nameErr = $emailErr = $genderErr = $websiteErr = "";
$name = $email = $gender = $comment = $website = "";
 
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
  if (empty($_POST["name"])) {
    $nameErr = "名字是必需的。";
  } else {
    $name = test_input($_POST["name"]);
  }
 
  if (empty($_POST["email"])) {
    $emailErr = "邮箱是必需的。";
  } else {
    $email = test_input($_POST["email"]);
  }
 
  if (empty($_POST["website"])) {
    $website = "";
  } else {
    $website = test_input($_POST["website"]);
  }
 
  if (empty($_POST["comment"])) {
    $comment = "";
  } else {
    $comment = test_input($_POST["comment"]);
  }
 
  if (empty($_POST["gender"])) {
    $genderErr = "性别是必需的。";
  } else {
    $gender = test_input($_POST["gender"]);
  }
}
?>

PHP - Display error message

In the following HTML example form, we Scripts have been added to each field that will display error messages if incorrect information is entered. (If the user submits the form without filling in the information, an error message will be output):

<form method="post" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);?>">
   名字: <input type="text" name="name">
   <span class="error">* <?php echo $nameErr;?></span>
   <br><br>
   E-mail: <input type="text" name="email">
   <span class="error">* <?php echo $emailErr;?></span>
   <br><br>
   网址: <input type="text" name="website">
   <span class="error"><?php echo $websiteErr;?></span>
   <br><br>
   备注: <textarea name="comment" rows="5" cols="40"></textarea>
   <br><br>
   性别:
   <input type="radio" name="gender" value="female">女
   <input type="radio" name="gender" value="male">男
   <span class="error">* <?php echo $genderErr;?></span>
   <br><br>
   <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">
</form>