[pmwiki-users] Validating forms in pmwiki

[Peter Bowers]

On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Doug Johnson <doug at asknice.com> wrote:

>  I've read through a lot of the online documentation.  I've got my form
> done and it is lovely.
> I am following the advice to do validation server side.  I am calling a php
> program that does the validation and then will pass the entered data
> elsewhere.
> My problem is that I can't see how to go back to the calling page if the
> data doesn't validate.  According to me, it would be a post back to the
> pmwiki page with all of the passed variables going back in fields and then
> reading from the $_SESSION vars (which I have working fine, thank you).
> But I don't know how to do the post back to the page without loading up a
> form and requiring the user to click on it.
>

It sounds like you have your validation in a standalone script rather than
something integrated into pmwiki.  Typically the way this is handled is by
integrating your validation script with pmwiki via a custom action
(?action=myvalidatingaction) or via some sort of markup located on a given
page.  Then your form has a target URL which specifies this action or the
appropriate page.

Doing it as a markup has the advantage that you can place your error
messages on your page without having to modify any code.

Submitting to the *same* page where your form is located ({$FullName}) has
the advantage of making it very easy to leave your fields filled in if the
user made a mistake and they need to edit a field or two...

In your validation script if everything looks good then you can store your
data appropriately and simply redirect to another page.

I don't know if that helps or not...  The important point is that life will
be a lot easier working within pmwiki rather than working independently and
trying to pass stuff back and forth via $_SESSION (typically $_SESSION is
not used at all in forms).

-Peter
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