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Undefined variable

Doug

By Doug
in PHP Coding Help

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Doug Member

Doug

Posted
Posted

Hello,

I think there may be a simple answer but I have been staring at this code for the last couple for hours and cannot see the error. I am going cross eyed!

 

I have written a form that works apart from a bit where I have radio buttons for yes or no.

 

On the form I get the error:

Notice: Undefined variable... on line 134

 

for both the yes and no responses.

 

The rest of the code is fine and the functionality of uploading to the database works except for this part.

 

Any help would be much appreciated

 

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en">
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

<title>Aliens Abducted Me - Report an Abduction</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" />

</head>

<body>

<h2>Aliens Abducted Me - Report an Abduction</h2>


<?php

require_once('connectvars3.php');


if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
   

// Connect to the database
   
$dbc = mysqli_connect(DB_Host, DB_User, DB_Password, DB_Name);

   

// Grab the report data from the POST
   
$first_name = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['firstname']));
   
$last_name = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['lastname']));
   
$email = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['email']));
   
$when_it_happened = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['whenithappened']));
   
$how_long = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['howlong']));
   
$how_many = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['howmany']));
   
$alien_description = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['aliendescription']));
   
$what_they_did = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['whattheydid']));
   
$fang_spotted = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['fangspotted']));
   
$other = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['other']));

   
if (!empty($first_name) && !empty($last_name) && !empty($when_it_happened) && !empty($how_long) && !empty($what_they_did)) {
     

// Write the data to the database
     
$query = "INSERT INTO aliens_abduction (first_name, last_name, email, when_it_happened, how_long, how_many, alien_description, what_they_did,

fang_spotted, other) " .
        "VALUES ('$first_name', '$last_name', '$email', '$when_it_happened', '$how_long', '$how_many', '$alien_description',

'$what_they_did', '$fang_spotted', '$other')";
     
mysqli_query($dbc, $query);

     

// Confirm success with the user
      echo '<p>Thanks for adding your abduction.</p>';
     
echo '<p><a href="index4.php"><< Back to the home page</a></p>';

      mysqli_close($dbc);
     
exit();
   
}
    else {
     
echo '<p class="error">Please enter your full name, date of abduction, how long you were abducted, and a brief description of the aliens.</p>';
   
}
  }

?>



<p>Share your story of alien abduction:</p>

<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">
   
<label for="firstname">First name:</label>
   
<input type="text" id="firstname" name="firstname" value="
<?php
if (!empty($first_name)) echo $first_name;
?>" /> <br />
   
<label for="lastname">Last name:</label>
   
<input type="text" id="lastname" name="lastname" value="
<?php if (!empty($first_name)) echo $last_name; ?>" /><br />
   
<label for="email">What is your email address?</label>
    <input type="text" id="email" name="email" value="
<?php if (!empty($email)) echo $email; ?>" />
<br />
   
<label for="whenithappened">When did it happen?</label>
    <input type="text" id="whenithappened" name="whenithappened" value="
<?php if (!empty($when_it_happened)) echo $when_it_happened; else echo 'YYYY-MM-DD'; ?>" /><br />
    <label for="howlong">How long were you gone?

</label>
    <input type="text" id="howlong" name="howlong" value="

<?php if (!empty($how_long)) echo $how_long; ?>" /><br />
    <label for="howmany">How many did you see?</label>
    <input type="text" id="howmany"

name="howmany" value="
<?php
if (!empty($how_many)) echo $how_many; ?>" /><br />
    <label for="aliendescription">Describe them:</label>
    <input type="text"

id="aliendescription" name="aliendescription" size="32" value="<?php if (!empty($alien_description)) echo $alien_description; ?>" /><br />
   
<label for="whattheydid">What did they do to you?</label>
   
<input type="text" id="whattheydid" name="whattheydid" size="32" value="<?php if (!empty($what_they_did))
echo $what_they_did; ?>" /><br />
   
<label for="fang_spotted">Have you seen my dog Fang?</label>
   
Yes <input id="fang_spotted" name="fang_spotted" type="radio" value="yes"
<?php echo ($fang_spotted == 'yes' ? 'checked="checked"' : ''); ?>
   
No <input id="fang_spotted" name="fang_spotted" type="radio" value="no"  
<?php echo ($fang_spotted == 'no' ? 'checked="checked"' : ''); ?> /><br />
  <br />
    <label for="other">Anything else you want to add?</label>
   

<textarea id="other" name="other"><?php if (!empty($other)) echo $other; ?></textarea><br />
    <input type="submit" value="Report Abduction"

name="submit" />

</form>

</body>

</html>[u][/u]

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premiso Regular Member

premiso

Posted
Posted

The reason is if the box is not checked, it does not get passed as a parameter to POST.

 

$fang_spotted = !empty($_POST['fang_spotted'])?mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['fang_spotted'])):'no';

 

That should default the value to no if fang_spotted is not being passed to the POST data.  This, may however be a flaw in your form code. As if one or the other should be checked, well that error should not occur.

 

EDIT

And indeed I did find the issue in your code:

Yes <input id="fang_spotted" name="fang_spotted" type="radio" value="yes"
<?php echo ($fang_spotted == 'yes' ? 'checked="checked"' : ''); ?>

 

You never close that input statement. Change it to:

Yes <input id="fang_spotted" name="fang_spotted" type="radio" value="yes"
<?php echo ($fang_spotted == 'yes' ? 'checked="checked"' : ''); ?> />

 

And see if it works properly.

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premiso Regular Member

premiso

Posted
Posted

This is what happens when you do not look at the line the error refers to.

 

Indeed, you only set $fang_spotted  when the form has been POST'ed and you try to use that variable no matter if the form was POST'ed or not, so the initial load will throw that error. To fix it:

 

Yes <input id="fang_spotted" name="fang_spotted" type="radio" value="yes"
<?php echo (!empty($fang_spotted) && $fang_spotted == 'yes') ? 'checked="checked"' : ''); ?> />
   
No <input id="fang_spotted" name="fang_spotted" type="radio" value="no"  
<?php echo (empty($fang_spotted) || $fang_spotted != 'yes') ? 'checked="checked"' : ''; ?> /><br />

 

That will test the variable to make sure that it is indeed populated and avoid errors for the initial page load.

 

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