trevor1940
asked on
PHP: Form validation
Hi
I have a couple of questions regarding form validation
First is there a way to validate a name field
Second this isn't working
I have a couple of questions regarding form validation
First is there a way to validate a name field
$FormError=0;
$name = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'name');
if(empty($name) || strlen($name >250)){
echo "Name Error";
$FormError++;
}Second this isn't working
// HTML
<input type="text" name="nickName" placeholder="bondj007">
// PHP
$NickName = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'nickName', FILTER_VALIDATE_REGEXP,array("options" => array("regexp"=>'/*\d{3}$/')));
if (empty($NickName ) ){
// no NickName this OK as not mandatory but if submited must have 3 numbers at the end
}
elseif(strcmp($NickName, "bondj007")){
// this isn't working
echo"Are you really James Bond?";
$FormError++;
}
else{
echo"Nick name Valid";
}ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
Thanx Chris I'll test it tomorrow on the live script I suspect some of your points are due to typos
When I asked about validating a name I was hopping for how experts do it
Probably isn't valid but bellow could be
As for the 2nd part I was using === to compare the strings which seemed to fail google suggested to use strcmp()
The logic is if the user wishes to enter a Nick Name it has to end with 3 numbers but cannot be "bondj007"
When I asked about validating a name I was hopping for how experts do it
$name ="Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;";Probably isn't valid but bellow could be
$name="Chloé Double-Barrel O'Tool";As for the 2nd part I was using === to compare the strings which seemed to fail google suggested to use strcmp()
The logic is if the user wishes to enter a Nick Name it has to end with 3 numbers but cannot be "bondj007"
No worries.
Don't believe everything you read on Google ;)
strcmp() does a binary comparison, so it's used for checking higher / lower, as in alphabetical. It will return -1 if str1 is less than str2, 1 if str1 is greater than str1 and 0 if they're equal. You were checking for a boolean, so if the strings matched, it would return 0, which equates to boolean false, so it's not the correct function to use. Just do a simple equality (==).
Still not sure what you mean by validate. Based on your example, I'm guessing Chloé Double-Barrel O'Tool (great name!) would be valid, so you wouldn't want to filter anything out.
If you're planning on doing any DB work with it, then you should be using a prepared statement, so apostrophes won't be an issue, and you should configure your whole app (php / html / db) to use utf8 encoding so the accented letters won't be an issue either. IMO - those 2 points are how Experts would generally deal with it as a good starting point :)
Don't believe everything you read on Google ;)
strcmp() does a binary comparison, so it's used for checking higher / lower, as in alphabetical. It will return -1 if str1 is less than str2, 1 if str1 is greater than str1 and 0 if they're equal. You were checking for a boolean, so if the strings matched, it would return 0, which equates to boolean false, so it's not the correct function to use. Just do a simple equality (==).
Still not sure what you mean by validate. Based on your example, I'm guessing Chloé Double-Barrel O'Tool (great name!) would be valid, so you wouldn't want to filter anything out.
If you're planning on doing any DB work with it, then you should be using a prepared statement, so apostrophes won't be an issue, and you should configure your whole app (php / html / db) to use utf8 encoding so the accented letters won't be an issue either. IMO - those 2 points are how Experts would generally deal with it as a good starting point :)
ASKER
IMO - those 2 points are how Experts would generally deal with it as a good starting point
Thanx for the tip I guess was expecting something complex but that adherers to the KISS principle which works for me
I'm assuming I put "header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); in my PHP files will sort the encoding?
Regarding the header - it depends. If your PHP is outputting data that will be used in the HTML file, then it's the HTML that needs the encoding:
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
...
If you're connecting to a database then you need to setup the connection to use utf8. For PDO, set it in the DSN:
$dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbna
And for mysqli, set it on the connection:
$db = new mysqli($hostname, $username, $password, $database);
$db->set_charset("utf8");
You'll need to make sure your tables are setup to use utf8, and that's done at the mysql server level.
That should give you a good starting point for a utf8 compatible app.
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
...
If you're connecting to a database then you need to setup the connection to use utf8. For PDO, set it in the DSN:
$dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbna
And for mysqli, set it on the connection:
$db = new mysqli($hostname, $username, $password, $database);
$db->set_charset("utf8");
You'll need to make sure your tables are setup to use utf8, and that's done at the mysql server level.
That should give you a good starting point for a utf8 compatible app.
ASKER
Thanx Chris for help and the additional tips on UTF8
I've come to the conclusion you can't validate a name because there isn't any rules that govern names other than length but even that is arbitrary so as long as the name is handled as free text correctly the application should be OK
I've come to the conclusion you can't validate a name because there isn't any rules that govern names other than length but even that is arbitrary so as long as the name is handled as free text correctly the application should be OK
Validate how - you need to specify a rule. I am guessing that you want a M < length > N and maybe some sort of Regular Expression check on chars - but we would need to know what
Secondly - when you say not working
a) What did you expect
b) What did you observe
Easier to answer if you can give us some clues on the above.