John,
It seems that you're using two different conventions here. This is
inconsistent, and confusing to me (at least, and possibly others trying
to help you). Let me show you what I am talking about:
On Wednesday, March 13, 2002, at 09:20 AM, John Gurley wrote:
> Sorry,
> Didn't mean to keep everyone in the dark here is the code:
... snip ...
> <hr>
>
> <?
> echo $inp;
> ?>
Okay, see above? You've used "$inp". Now read on to another part of
your code:
> <?php
> echo $inp;
> echo '<input name = "inp" type = "hidden" value =
> "'.$_POST['$inp'].'">';
> ?>
Okay, now here, you're echoing "$inp" again, but then in the second echo
statement you are echoing "$_POST['$inp']"
Please don't be insulted if I make an assumption about what you know
about the use of variables within scripts, I'm going to do my best to
explain this and I can't know how much you know or don't. Here's how it
works:
On a script, you have access to any variable that you create within that
script. Thus, if you create a variable named "$inp", you can then echo
that variable or manipulate it in any way. Like this:
$inp = "blue"; // this assigns the string "blue" to the $inp variable
echo $inp; // this echoes "blue"
$outp = "green"; // this assigns "green" (a string) to the $outp
variable
$outp . $inp; // this combines ("concatenates") the two variables
together
// and results in the string "greenblue"
Okay, you probably already know all of that. But my point is that these
variables are accessible to this particular script. NOT TO OTHER
SCRIPTS. If you need a variable to be accessible to another script, you
must "pass" the variable along. There are a few ways to do this:
1) You can make the value of this variable a form field value, like this:
echo "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"inp\" value=\"$inp\" />";
(or this way, with single quotes:)
echo '<input type="hidden" name="inp" value="' . $inp . '" />';
note that in the above example, I have jumped out of the string being
echoed and concatenated the $inp variable to the string, then
concatenated the last part of the string ('" />'). This is because
within single-quotes, variables won't expand -- the buck ($) is treated
as a literal buck, not a variable marker.
2) You can put the variable name and value into the querystring of a
hyperlink, like this:
echo "<a href=\"./form2?inp=$inp\">Next</a>";
(or this way, with single quotes:)
echo '<a href="./form2?inp=' . $inp . '">Next</a>';
see how I've again jumped out of the singlequoted string and
concatenated the variable? Same reason -- variables don't expand within
singlequoted strings (though they do within doublequoted strings).
3) You can put the variable's value into a session variable. How you do
this depends on which version of PHP you are using. You can learn more
about session variables later, it's easy but you should get the hidden
form field technique or querystring technique down first.
These are ways you can pass variables to other scripts. Ignore the
session bit if you haven't yet learned sessions.
So in your example, you are echoing the value of $inp. But I don't see
where you've done the ASSIGNMENT of any value to $inp. For this reason,
you will simply get an empty string:
echo $inp; // this results in nothing
echo "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"inp\" value=\"$inp\" />;
// this results in '<input type="hidden" name="inp" value="" />'
If you had passed the $inp variable from a previous script to this one,
then you would use either $_GET['inp'] or $_POST['inp'] to access the
variable, assuming you have register_globals turned off in your php.ini
(if you don't then don't worry about this).
echo $_POST['inp']; // if the form from the previous script was
'method="post"'
echo $_GET['inp']; // if the form from the previous script was
'method="get"'
But if you do this:
echo $_POST['$inp'];
Then nothing will happen because the $inp part is between single quotes,
and single quotes don't expand variables -- the buck is treated as part
of the variable name (when it's not, it's supposed to be an indicator).
Even this:
echo $_POST["$inp"];
probably won't do what you want, because what will happen is the
variable $inp (inside of the brackets) will evaluate first, and then
whatever that evaluates to will become the name within $_POST['
and ']. Unless you have defined "$inp" somewhere, that's just a
mistake. Don't use the $ symbol within $_POST or $_GET variables until
you have a reason to do so.
So, in your script, you've called the "inp" variable both $inp and
$_POST['$inp']. You probably really only want to use one or the
other -- use the first one if register_globals is turned on, and the
second one if register_globals is turned off. But remember, this trick
is used only for accessing variables that have been passed to this
script from another script, not for accessing variables that have been
defined within this script.
This may have been overly explanatory and confusing, but if you have a
question about it, ask us.
Erik
----
Erik Price
Web Developer Temp
Media Lab, H.H. Brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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