Hoofdstuk 51. PHP and HTML

There are several stages for which encoding is important. Assuming that you have a string $data, which contains the string you want to pass on in a non-encoded way, these are the relevant stages:

• HTML interpretation. In order to specify a random string, you must include it in double quotes, and htmlspecialchars() the whole value.

• URL: A URL consists of several parts. If you want your data to be interpreted as one item, you must encode it with urlencode().

<?php
    echo "<input type=hidden value=\"" . htmlspecialchars($data) . "\">\n";
?>

<?php
    echo "<textarea name=mydata>\n";
    echo htmlspecialchars($data)."\n";
    echo "</textarea>";
?>

<?php
    echo "<a href=\"" . htmlspecialchars("/nextpage.php?stage=23&data=" .
        urlencode($data)) . "\">\n";
?>

When submitting a form, it is possible to use an image instead of the standard submit button with a tag like:

<input type="image" src="image.gif" name="foo">

Because foo.x and foo.y would make invalid variable names in PHP, they are automagically converted to foo_x and foo_y. That is, the periods are replaced with underscores. So, you'd access these variables like any other described within the section on retrieving variables from outside of PHP. For example, $_GET['foo_x'].

To get your <form> result sent as an array to your PHP script you name the <input>, <select> or <textarea> elements like this:

<input name="MyArray[]">
<input name="MyArray[]">
<input name="MyArray[]">
<input name="MyArray[]">

<input name="MyArray[]">
<input name="MyArray[]">
<input name="MyOtherArray[]">
<input name="MyOtherArray[]">

<input name="AnotherArray[]">
<input name="AnotherArray[]">
<input name="AnotherArray[email]">
<input name="AnotherArray[phone]">

See also Array Functions and Variables from outside PHP.

The select multiple tag in an HTML construct allows users to select multiple items from a list. These items are then passed to the action handler for the form. The problem is that they are all passed with the same widget name. ie.

<select name="var" multiple>

var=option1
var=option2
var=option3

<select name="var[]" multiple>

Note that if you are using JavaScript the [] on the element name might cause you problems when you try to refer to the element by name. Use it's numerical form element ID instead, or enclose the variable name in single quotes and use that as the index to the elements array, for example:

variable = documents.forms[0].elements['var[]'];

Since Javascript is (usually) a client-side technology, and PHP is (usually) a server-side technology, and since HTTP is a "stateless" protocol, the two languages cannot directly share variables.

It is, however, possible to pass variables between the two. One way of accomplishing this is to generate Javascript code with PHP, and have the browser refresh itself, passing specific variables back to the PHP script. The example below shows precisely how to do this -- it allows PHP code to capture screen height and width, something that is normally only possible on the client side.

<?php
if (isset($_GET['width']) AND isset($_GET['height'])) {
  // output the geometry variables
  echo "Screen width is: ". $_GET['width'] ."<br />\n";
  echo "Screen height is: ". $_GET['height'] ."<br />\n";
} else {
  // pass the geometry variables
  // (preserve the original query string
  //   -- post variables will need to handled differently)

  echo "<script language=\"javascript\">\n";
  echo "  location.href=\"${_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']}?${_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']}"
            . "&width=\" + screen.width + \"&height=\" + screen.height;\n";
  echo "</script>\n";
  exit();
}
?>