Stop re-sending form data while refreshing the page.

Don't bother with testing the submission.

Use your database to either update or reject the duplicated entry.

If I press "Submit" ten times, the data shouldn't have changed.

If your database simply updates the existing data, you will only ever have 1 row!

What sort of data do you have? Is there a unique entry in the table?

If not, then send one to the user when the form is created. When you get the info back, log the unique info in the database. If they re-submit, you will have the unique key to check in the database. If it is present, update the table, if not insert it into the table.

If you can post your current insert code, then I can help further.

There are 5 tables being inserted from this form.
The first table has the primary key generated from the
sequence and all ther tables  have unique keys.

I do not want to check for duplicate at the back end to save some workload on the server. The table being looked up is very large and there are a number of concurrent access to this form.
regards.

If you have Primary and Unique set correctly, then how are you getting duplicated rows?

Are all the tables getting the duplicated row? Or just the primary key table? Or not the primary, but the 4 others?

Can you show the code relating to the insert/update of the first table?

I would suggest something like this (not real PHP, but should be understandable).

$result = db_update;
if (number_of_rows_affected($result) > 0)
 {
// We can add the rest of the entries.
 }
else
 {
// Duplicate keys possible?
 }

Sort of thing.

When you have submitted the data to the database, you should redirect back to the page with the form.  If the user will press refresh, all the form data variables will be empty and nothing will be submitted to the database again.

This is how I always do it.

Example:

form.php (or whatever) :

<form action="register.php" method="post">
(your form)
</form>


register.php :

insert into the database ...

then

Header("Location: form.php");


The user is now back at form.php and nothing will happen if he refreshes the page.

This will also work if you only have one file to do this, i.e display the form and add to the database.
Simply use Header("location: filename.php") as soon as you have inserted data into the database, the browser will no longer remember what was in the query string and if you press refresh, it will not re-send the form.  It will just refresh the page.

place this script after insert data on your database

header ("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate");
header ("Pragma: no-cache");header ("Location: yourform.php");
exit;

if user to try refresh the page, current page only will refresh.

I wish resolve your problem

hagur /  fajr_n
It doesnot work for me. It seems calls to  header()  
should be only at the begining of the page.
regard

type the script below for example:

filename: test.php
<?
error_reporting(1);
if(isset($Submit))
{
     header ("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate");
     header ("Pragma: no-cache");
     header ("Location: testx.php?item=$yuhuu");
     exit;
}
else
{
     echo "<form method=\"post\" action=\"test.php\">\n";
     echo "<font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">Type some words here :</font>\n";
     echo "<input type=\"text\" name=\"yuhuu\"><br>\n";
     echo "<input type=\"submit\" name=\"Submit\" value=\"Send Me\">\n";
     echo "</form>\n";
}
?>

filename: testx.php
<?
error_reporting(1);
if(!(empty($item)))
{
     echo $item;
}
else
{
     header ("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate");
     header ("Pragma: no-cache");
     header ("Location: test.php");
     exit;
}
?>

I'm already running it and work.

All of this doesn't really fix the problems of duplicate rows though.

If the database is allowing them, then you are putting a LOT of work into the system to stop them.

If you have a valid constraint/index/uniqueness on the database, they simply will NOT happen! This negates any futher coding. You can handle it if you want, but the database will simply reject the update.

IMHO, this is a much more resiliant method.

Regards,

Richard.

Well.. you could set a cookie to the user the first time he submits the data..

and in your script, just evaluate the cookie.. if it exists, simply don't update the data, if it doesn't, well.. it's the user's first time.. so store the data to your data base...

fajr_n,

I am working out your suggestion. Thanks.

I am using PostGreSql Database as backend. It does not have any exception handling. Therefore, though, any duplicates will be checked by referential integrity check mechanisms, it dumps all weird messages on the user screen.

Moreover why should I do some additional querying on the backend and choke the server if something can be prevented at the client-side itself?

reagards.

fajr_n,

I am working out your suggestion. Thanks.

I am using PostGreSql Database as backend. It does not have any exception handling. Therefore, though, any duplicates will be checked by referential integrity check mechanisms, it dumps all weird messages on the user screen.

Moreover why should I do some additional querying on the backend and choke the server if something can be prevented at the client-side itself?

reagards.

fajr_n,

I am working out your suggestion. Thanks.

I am using PostGreSql Database as backend. It does not have any exception handling. Therefore, though, any duplicates will be checked by referential integrity check mechanisms, it dumps all weird messages on the user screen.

Moreover why should I do some additional querying on the backend and choke the server if something can be prevented at the client-side itself?

reagards.

:)

fajr_n,

Sorry. What I am looking for is to display the same page after submitting and yet to stop refreshing the page.
Is there any browser api calls available?
regards.
jose.

Ah.

So.

They fill in the form. Press submit. You then return a text only version of the form.

The page to return the results of the update should be the same layout, just without and of the form controls.

If they need to re-edit the data, you need to include a re-edit link which shows the original form with the field editable.

Regards,

Richard Quadling.