How to create a confirmation box in php

I think.. to do a confirmation box in php isn't possible without javascript but I could be wrong.

But you could create php code which will write javascript code to the page when a validation fails.

When you submit your form, i'm guessing it goes to a php processing file or back to the same page with a conditional to run code if the SERVER_REQUEST == POST.

It's here that you run your validations.

(I'm really sorry if you know all this already btw!)

This scenario works easily if you validate on the same page as the form - i.e. <form action="same page">.

So you're expecting $_POST['confirm'] to be true/1/ticked. All you have to do is say if $_POST['confirm'] is not true/1/ticked, print javascript popup code to the page.

<?php
$alert_script;
$error;

//Put this POST block right at the top of the page.
if ($_POST['confirm'] !== 1) {
  $alert_script =  "<script>alert(\'You have to tick the box\')</script>";
  $error = true;
} else {
  $error = false;
}
if (!$error) {
  //complete the action code/call another file.
}
?>

//Then wherever you're running document ready or general page scripts, you'll want to echo $alert_script

//scripts
<?php
  if (isset($alert_script) {
     echo $alert_script;
  }
?>

At the same time, you want to stop any additional code executing until the user selects the confirm box. You might add a variable $error = true if a validation fails and only allow the success functions to run if (!$error) { Success Function (i.e. writing to database or sending email) }

Validation messages via javascript might be considered obtrusive - if the user has js turned off, how are they going to know what the error is? They would also be able to submit the form without that particular validation.

Instead of creating an alert, you could create an error message and a box for error messages. Write a conditional to say if an error message exists, echo this message box and echo the error message inside.

I hope this helps!