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PHP Build a Basic PHP Website (2018) Adding a Basic Form SMTP with Google

Steven Schaner
Steven Schaner
14,675 Points
Posted by Steven Schaner
Steven Schaner
14,675 Points

$name and $email are shown in my email but not $details. var_dump shows that $details has a stored string. Please help.

My email submission to gmail works correctly but leaves out the string that's stored as $details. I ran a var_dump and saw that $details had a string stored into it but $email_body looked like Name: steve Email: sch______@gmail.com Details:

I don't know why everything is shown except $details. I'm not sure what code to post that would help someone answer this question but here is some. Thank you for any help.

if($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
  $name = trim(filter_input(INPUT_POST, "name", FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING));
  $email = trim(filter_input(INPUT_POST, "email", FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL));
  $details = trim(filter_input(INPUT_POST,"details",FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS));

  if ($name == "" || $email == "" || $details = "") {
    echo "Plese fill in the required fields: Name, Email, Details";
    exit;
  }
  if ($_POST["address"] != "") {
    echo "Bad form input";
    exit;
  }
  if (!PHPMailer::validateAddress($email)) {
    echo "Invalid Email Address";
    exit;
  }

  $email_body = "";
  $email_body .= "Name: " . $name . "\n";
  $email_body .= "Email: " . $email . "\n";
  $email_body .= "Details: " . $details . "\n";

Here's my form:

<form method="post" action="suggest.php">
      <table>
        <tr>
          <th><label for="name">Name:</label></th>
          <td><input type="text" id="name" name="name" value=""></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <th><label for="email">Email:</label></th>
          <td><input type="text" id="email" name="email" value=""></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <th><label for="name">Suggest Item Details:</label></th>
          <td><textarea name="details" id="details"></textarea></td>
        </tr>
        <tr style="display:none">
          <th><label for="address">Address:</label></th>
          <td><input type="text" id="address" name="address" value=""></td>
          <p>Please leave this field blank.</p>
        </tr>
      </table>
      <input type="submit" value="Send">
    </form>

2 Answers

Tim Makin
Tim Makin
17,261 Points
Tim Makin
Tim Makin
17,261 Points

Hi Steven,

Try changing your if statement that checks the submission for empty values from:

if ($name == "" || $email == "" || $details = "") {

To this:

if ($name == "" || $email == "" || $details == "") {

The single equals will mean that $details is assigned the value of an empty string, overriding whatever was being contained in the variable hence the empty value in the email.

Hope this helps!

Tim

Steven Schaner
Steven Schaner
14,675 Points
Steven Schaner
Steven Schaner
14,675 Points

Wow, thanks Tim. What a careless mistake. It helps to have someone else look at your code to catch minor mistakes. It works! Yay!

Austin Johnson
Austin Johnson
11,447 Points
Austin Johnson
Austin Johnson
11,447 Points

Wow. I made an identical mistake in my if statement. Good catch!