Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

PHP

Posted by Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points

Validating Contact form error message

Hi everyone. I've been following Randy's "Building a Simple PHP Program" lesson, and everything has been going smoothly, except my contact form. I feel like I've probably overlooked something, or there's some obvious, silly error staring me in the face, but I can't find it!

When I test out my contact form, it always gives me the error message that I haven't entered a name, email, or message in the contact form--even when I've entered everything accurately.

I'll attach the code, but I'm pretty sure it's verbatim what was written out in the lessons . Any help is much appreciated!

<?php

if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") { $name = trim($_POST["name"]); $email = trim($_POST["email"]); $message = trim($_POST["message"]);

if ($name == "" OR $email_address == "" OR $message == "") {
    echo "You must specify a value for name, email address, and message.";
    exit;
}

foreach( $_POST as $value ){
    if( stripos($value, 'Content-Type:') !== FALSE ){
        echo "There was a problem with the information you entered.";
        exit;
    }
}

if ($_POST["address"] != "") {
    echo "Your form submission has an error.";
    exit;
}

require_once("inc/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php");
$mail = new PHPMailer();

if (!$mail->ValidateAddress($email)){
    echo "You must specify a valid email address.";
    exit;
}

$email_body = "";
$email_body = $email_body . "Name: " . $name . "\n";
$email_body = $email_body . "Email: " . $email . "\n";
$email_body = $email_body . "Message: " . $message;

// TODO : send email

header("Location: about.php?status=thanks");
exit;

} ?>

4 Answers

Elliott Frazier
PLUS
Elliott Frazier
Courses Plus Student 9,647 Points
Elliott Frazier
Elliott Frazier
Courses Plus Student 9,647 Points

Got it! You seem to have put a value of "message" in the name attribute of the input tag that your using for a "honey-pot" validation check instead of a value of "address". that's why it couldn't pass the validation check and kept giving you that error, because the "honey-pot" input's value is blank and since the name attribute was set to "message" it ran that though the first validation check to see if it's value is blank and it was so it gave you the error you told it to :

if ($name == "" OR **$email** == "" OR $message == "") {
    echo "You must specify a value for name, email address, and message.";
    exit;
}

edit - I also changed the if statement above by replacing the varible: "$email_address" to: "$email" because you stored $_POST["email"] in the varible "$email"

Hope this helps :)

Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points

<form method="post" action="about.php">

                <table>
                    <tr>
                        <th>
                            <label for="name">Name</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <input type="text" name="name" id="name">
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <th>
                            <label for="email">Email</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <input type="text" name="email" id="email">
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <th>
                            <label for="message">Message</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <textarea name="message" id="message"></textarea>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr style="display: none;">
                        <th>
                            <label for="address">Address</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <input type="text" name="message" id="message">
                            <p>Humans: please leave this field blank!</p>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
                <input type="submit" value="send">

            </form>
Elliott Frazier
Elliott Frazier
Courses Plus Student 9,647 Points
Elliott Frazier
Elliott Frazier
Courses Plus Student 9,647 Points

You seem to have accidentally cut out the opening form tag. could you display that aswell?

Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points
Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points

ah sorry, here's everything all together:

<?php

if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") { $name = trim($_POST["name"]); $email = trim($_POST["email"]); $message = trim($_POST["message"]);

if ($name == "" OR $email_address == "" OR $message == "") {
    echo "You must specify a value for name, email address, and message.";
    exit;
}

foreach( $_POST as $value ){
    if( stripos($value, 'Content-Type:') !== FALSE ){
        echo "There was a problem with the information you entered.";
        exit;
    }
}

if ($_POST["address"] != "") {
    echo "Your form submission has an error.";
    exit;
}

require_once("inc/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php");
$mail = new PHPMailer();

if (!$mail->ValidateAddress($email)){
    echo "You must specify a valid email address.";
    exit;
}

$email_body = "";
$email_body = $email_body . "Name: " . $name . "\n";
$email_body = $email_body . "Email: " . $email . "\n";
$email_body = $email_body . "Message: " . $message;

// TODO : send email

header("Location: about.php?status=thanks");
exit;

} ?> <?php $pageTitle = "+ ABOUT"; include('inc/header.php'); ?>

<?php $section = "ABOUT"; include('inc/shopnav.php'); ?>

<!--images should be under 220 wide-->

<div id="shopcontainer" class="container column">

    <div id="shopbox" class="thirteen columns clearfix" style="min-height:300px;">

        <h3>Contact</h3>

        <?php if (isset($_GET["status"]) AND $_GET["status"] == "thanks") { ?>
            <p>Thank you for your message</p>
        <?php } else { ?>

            <p>
                about about about about
            </p>

            <form method="post" action="about.php">

                <table>
                    <tr>
                        <th>
                            <label for="name">Name</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <input type="text" name="name" id="name">
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <th>
                            <label for="email">Email</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <input type="text" name="email" id="email">
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <th>
                            <label for="message">Message</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <textarea name="message" id="message"></textarea>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr style="display: none;">
                        <th>
                            <label for="address">Address</label>
                        </th>
                        <td>
                            <input type="text" name="message" id="message">
                            <p>Humans: please leave this field blank!</p>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
                <input type="submit" value="send">

            </form>
        <?php  } ?>



    </div>

</div>

<?php include ('inc/footer.php'); ?>

Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points
Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points

Hm, so I changed the name and id attribute of the input tag for the hidden "Address" field...but it still didn't work. I still get my error message of "You must specify a value for name, email address, and message." regardless of what I enter into the form. Did I mistake what you were telling me?

Elliott Frazier
Elliott Frazier
Courses Plus Student 9,647 Points
Elliott Frazier
Elliott Frazier
Courses Plus Student 9,647 Points

I edited my previous answer with more information accidentally left out. hope it helps ;)

Elizabeth Eisenstein
Elizabeth Eisenstein
128 Points

Fantastic! Thank you so much--feel sorta silly for missing that one!