PHP Code Question

Okay, a check these out:

1. Your html isn't complete, and you never closed your form element. I think you're missing closing two divs and the form element.

2. Verify your action. I don't have enough info to be certain, but it's probably right. Just know that from root, there needs to be a _vti_cnf folder, and inside that, a process_form.php file. With the forward slash at the beginning of the action, it means you're looking for that file from root, not relative to wherever the location of the file that has this form in it on the server.

3. $_POST["submit"] is never true, because your button doesn't have a name of submit, so modify your button html to be <button class="btn btn-default margin-bottom-9" type="submit" name="submit">Submit</button>

4. Subject will always be empty, because it doesn't have a value attribute on each option. That's what the form will submit, so that needs to be added. Look at my modified html.

   a. You gave the subject select a name of Subject with a capital S, but in your post you’re looking for the lower case version. These names are case sensitive, so $_POST[‘subject’] would never be anything. I modified the html to for the select to be name=”subject” so it works.

   b. However, you’d never get the value of the select sent through your form, since you’re setting the value of the variable $subject to $_POST[‘subject’], and than later one, you’re setting $subject again this time to just a string. The Subject variable gets overridden, no Bueno. I think maybe what you wanted was something like `$subject = $subject . ‘: Message from Code 3 Solutions Contact Form’; which would than give you an email subject like “Customer Support: Message from Code 3 Solutions Contact Form”

5. Message will always be empty, is there suppose to be a messages field in the form? I added a text area to your form just because it makes sense.

6. $from is just a string, “form-control”, which probably won’t send out cause it’s not a valid email address. I would assume you want the from field to be the user’s email address, which we already grabbed in the $email variable.

7. For ease of readability, I modified your body string a little bit

8. In your error checking, `$_POST[‘message’] comes out of no where. I’m assuming it should be checking if $_POST[‘info_message’] is set.

9. Check if any error’s. You if statement was actually erroring, because if all 3 fields had data in them, then the variables $errName, $errEmail, and $errMessage never get set, howver you’re asking if they are true or false, which php doesn’t know, cause they don’t exists. So I modified to ask if they’re not set.

So if $errName, and $errEmail, and $errMessage is not set, than proceed to sending the email. If any of them are are set, this check fails, and we do something in the else where I have the simple echo (“Sorry, check your fields”).

Now in Theory, this should send an email, but it’s still untested. You will still need a way to return the results back to the browser. Right now you are creating a result variable, but there is no way for it to get back to the client. Usually, and somewhere in Treehouse there are videos on forms in PHP, you set a get variable, and then redirect the header using that get variable to show or hid messages on form submit. You’re also not really checking the email address is correct at all, so just be aware this is little validation of fields here, other than is there something set, even if it’s just jibberish.

But you’re on your way, you can take it over from here. My modified code below:

<form method="post" action="_vti_cnf/process_form.php" class="box-aside" role="form">
      <div class="row">
        <div class="col-sm-6">
          <div class="content-left">
            <article class="content">
              <div class="form-group">
                <label for="firstname">First name:</label>
                <input id="firstname" class="form-control" name="first_name" placeholder="First Name" type="text">
              </div>
              <div class="form-group">
                <label for="lastname">Last name:</label>
                <input id="lastname" class="form-control" name="last_name" placeholder="Last Name" type="text">
              </div>
              <div class="form-group">
                <label for="email">Email address</label>
                <input id="email" class="form-control" name="email" placeholder="Enter Email" type="email">email
              </div>
              <div class="form-group">
                <label for="message">Message</label>
                <textarea id="message" class="form-control" name="info_message" placeholder="Enter Message" type="text"></textarea>
              </div>
              <div class="form-group">
                <label>Subject</label>
                <select class="form-control" name="subject">
                  <option value="Customer Support">Customer Support</option>
                  <option value="Sales Marketing">Sales Marketing</option>
                  <option value="Job Opportunities">Job Opportunities</option>
                  <option value="Product Support">Product Support</option>
                  <option value="Suggestions">Suggestions</option>
                </select>
              </div>
              <button class="btn btn-default margin-bottom-9" type="submit" name="submit">Submit</button>
            </article>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </form>

<?php

if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {
  $firstname = $_POST['first_name'];
  $lastname = $_POST['last_name'];
  $email = $_POST['email'];
  $subject = $_POST['subject'];
  $message = $_POST['info_message'];
  $from = $email;
  $to = 'Ben@code3solutions.us';
  $subject = $subject . ': Message from Code 3 Solutions Contact Form ';

  $body = "From: $firstname\n";
  $body .="E-Mail: $email\n";
  $body .="Subject: $subject\n";
  $body .="Message: $message\n";

  // Check if name has been entered
        if (!$_POST['first_name']) {
            $errName = 'Please enter your name';
        }

        // Check if email has been entered and is valid
        if (!$_POST['email'] || !filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
            $errEmail = 'Please enter a valid email address';
        }

        //Check if message has been entered
        if (!$_POST['info_message']) {
            $errMessage = 'Please enter your message';
        }

        // If there are no errors, send the email
      if (!isset($errName) && !isset($errEmail) && !isset($errMessage)) {
          if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $from)) {
              $result='<div class="alert alert-success">Thank You! I will be in touch</div>';
              echo ($result);
          } else {
              $result='<div class="alert alert-danger">Sorry there was an error sending your message. Please try again later</div>';
              echo($result);
          }
      } else {
        echo ("Sorry, check your fields");
      }

}

?>