Using if(isset($_POST['submit'])) to not display echo when script is open is not working

BruceyBandit picture BruceyBandit · Oct 15, 2011 · Viewed 198.4k times · Source

I have a little problem with my if(isset($_POST['submit'])) code. What I want is some echos and a table to not appear when the script is open but I do want it to show when the submit button for the form has been clicked. The problem is though that when I include the if(isset($_POST['submit'])) function, when I click on the submit button it does not display the echos and the table at all. Why is this and can you help me out with this issue please.

Below is the code:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>

<title>Exam Interface</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
</head>
<body>

<p><strong>NOTE: </strong>If a search box is left blank, then the form will search for all data under that specific field</p>

<form action="exam_interface.php" method="post" name="sessionform">        <!-- This will post the form to its own page"-->
<p>Session ID: <input type="text" name="sessionid" /></p>      <!-- Enter Session Id here-->
<p>Module Number: <input type="text" name="moduleid" /></p>      <!-- Enter Module Id here-->
<p>Teacher Username: <input type="text" name="teacherid" /></p>      <!-- Enter Teacher here-->
<p>Student Username: <input type="text" name="studentid" /></p>      <!-- Enter User Id here-->
<p>Grade: <input type="text" name="grade" /></p>      <!-- Enter Grade here-->
<p>Order Results By: <select name="order">
<option value="ordersessionid">Session ID</option>
<option value="ordermoduleid">Module Number</option>
<option value="orderteacherid">Teacher Username</option>
<option value="orderstudentid">Student Username</option>
<option value="ordergrade">Grade</option>
</select>
<p><input type="submit" value="Submit" /></p>
</form>

<?php

$username="xxx";
$password="xxx";
$database="mobile_app";

mysql_connect('localhost',$username,$password);

@mysql_select_db($database) or die("Unable to select database");

$sessionid = isset ($_POST['sessionid']) ? $_POST['sessionid'] : "";
$moduleid = isset ($_POST['moduleid']) ? $_POST['moduleid'] : "";
$teacherid = isset ($_POST['teacherid']) ? $_POST['teacherid'] : "";
$studentid = isset ($_POST['studentid']) ? $_POST['studentid'] : "";
$grade = isset ($_POST['grade']) ? $_POST['grade'] : "";
$orderfield = isset ($_POST['order']) ? $_POST['order'] : "";

$sessionid = mysql_real_escape_string($sessionid);
$moduleid = mysql_real_escape_string($moduleid);
$teacherid = mysql_real_escape_string($teacherid);
$studentid = mysql_real_escape_string($studentid);
$grade = mysql_real_escape_string($grade);

switch ($orderfield) {
    case 'ordersessionid': $orderfield = 'gr.SessionId';
    break;
    case 'ordermoduleid': $orderfield = 'm.ModuleId'; 
    break;
    case 'orderteacherid': $orderfield = 's.TeacherId';
    break;
    case 'orderstudentid': $orderfield = 'gr.StudentId'; 
    break;
    case 'ordergrade': $orderfield = 'gr.Grade';
    break;
}

$ordertable = $orderfield;

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Module m INNER JOIN Session s ON m.ModuleId = s.ModuleId JOIN Grade_Report gr ON s.SessionId = gr.SessionId JOIN Student st ON gr.StudentId = st.StudentId WHERE ('$sessionid' = '' OR gr.SessionId = '$sessionid') AND ('$moduleid' = '' OR m.ModuleId = '$moduleid') AND ('$teacherid' = '' OR s.TeacherId = '$teacherid') AND ('$studentid' = '' OR gr.StudentId = '$studentid') AND ('$grade' = '' OR gr.Grade = '$grade') ORDER BY $ordertable ASC");

$num=mysql_numrows($result);

if(isset($_POST['submit'])){

echo "<p>Your Search: <strong>Session ID:</strong> "; if (empty($sessionid))echo "'All Sessions'"; else echo "'$sessionid'";echo ", <strong>Module ID:</strong> "; if (empty($moduleid))echo "'All Modules'"; else echo "'$moduleid'";echo ", <strong>Teacher Username:</strong> "; if (empty($teacherid))echo "'All Teachers'"; else echo "'$teacherid'";echo ", <strong>Student Username:</strong> "; if (empty($studentid))echo "'All Students'"; else echo "'$studentid'";echo ", <strong>Grade:</strong> "; if (empty($grade))echo "'All Grades'"; else echo "'$grade'"; "</p>";

echo "<p>Number of Records Shown in Result of the Search: <strong>$num</strong></p>";

echo "<table border='1'>
<tr>
<th>Student Id</th>
<th>Forename</th>
<th>Session Id</th>
<th>Grade</th>
<th>Mark</th>
<th>Module</th>
<th>Teacher</th>
</tr>";

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){

 echo "<tr>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['StudentId'] . "</td>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['Forename'] . "</td>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['SessionId'] . "</td>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['Grade'] . "</td>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['Mark'] . "</td>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['ModuleName'] . "</td>";
  echo "<td>" . $row['TeacherId'] . "</td>";
  echo "</tr>";
}

echo "</table>";

}

mysql_close();


 ?>

</body>
</html>

Any help will be much appreciated, Thank You.

Answer

Clive picture Clive · Oct 15, 2011

You need to give your submit <input> a name or it won't be available using $_POST['submit']:

<p><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit" /></p>