PHP Forms Working with Multipage Forms

PHP Forms

Working with Multipage Forms

Problem

You want to use a form that displays more than one page and preserves data from one page to the next. For example, your form is for a survey that has too many questions to put them all on one page.

Solution

Use session tracking to store form information for each stage as well as a variable to keep track of what stage to display. Displays the four files for a two page- form and showing the collected results.

Example  Making a multipage form

The “deciding what to do” logic (stage.php):

       // Turn on sessions

       session_start();

       // Figure out what stage to use

       if (($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'GET') || (! isset($_POST['stage']))) {

             $stage = 1;

       } else {

             $stage = (int) $_POST['stage'];

       }

       // Make sure stage isn't too big or too small

       $stage = max($stage, 1);

       $stage = min($stage, 3);

       // Save any submitted data

       if ($stage > 1) {

             foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {

                   $_SESSION[$key] = $value;

             }

       }

       include __DIR__ . "/stage-$stage.php";

The first page of the form (stage-1.php):

       <form action='<?= htmlentities($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']) ?>' method='post'>

       Name: <input type='text' name='name'/> <br/>

       Age: <input type='text' name='age'/> <br/>

       <input type='hidden' name='stage' value='<?= $stage + 1 ?>'/>

       <input type='submit' value='Next'/>

       </form>

The second page of the form (stage-2.php):

       <form action='<?= htmlentities($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']) ?>' method='post'>

       Favorite Color: <input type='text' name='color'/> <br/>

       Favorite Food: <input type='text' name='food'/> <br/>

       <input type='hidden' name='stage' value='<?= $stage + 1 ?>'/>

       <input type='submit' value='Done'/>

The displaying-results page (stage-3.php):

       Hello <?= htmlentities($_SESSION['name']) ?>.

       You are <?= htmlentities($_SESSION['age']) ?> years old.

       Your favorite color is <?= htmlentities($_SESSION['color']) ?>

       and your favorite food is <?= htmlentities($_SESSION['food']) ?>.

Discussion

At the beginning of each stage, all the submitted form variables are copied into $_SESSION. This makes them available on subsequent requests, including the code that runs in stage 3, which displays everything that’s been saved.

PHP’s sessions are perfect for this kind of task since all of the data in a session is stored on the server. This keeps each request small—no need to resubmit stuff that’s been entered on a previous stage—and reduces the validation overhead. You only have to validate each piece of submitted data when it’s submitted.