CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phphtmlformsbuttonpost
M.G.Poirot
M.G.Poirot

Reputation: 1155

Send value of submit button when form gets posted

I have a list of names and some buttons with product names. When one of the buttons is clicked the information of the list is sent to a PHP script, but I can't hit the submit button to send its value. How is it done? I boiled my code down to the following:

The sending page:

<html>
<form action="buy.php" method="post">
    <select name="name">
        <option>John</option>
        <option>Henry</option>
    <select>
    <input id='submit' type='submit' name='Tea'    value='Tea'>
    <input id='submit' type='submit' name='Coffee' value='Coffee'>
</form>
</html>

The receiving page: buy.php

<?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $purchase = $_POST['submit'];
    //here some SQL database magic happens
?>

Everything except sending the submit button value works flawlessly.

Upvotes: 46

Views: 299970

Answers (7)

Aldo
Aldo

Reputation: 923

You could use something like this to give your button a value:

<?php
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
  $aSubmitVal = array_keys($_POST['submit'])[0];
  echo 'The button value is: ' . $aSubmitVal;
}
?>
<form action="/" method="post">
  <input id="someId" type="submit" name="submit[SomeValue]" value="Button name">
</form>

This will give you the string "SomeValue" as a result

https://i.sstatic.net/SW8q7.gif

Upvotes: 0

phn
phn

Reputation: 1820

The initial post mentioned buttons. You can also replace the input tags with buttons.

<button type="submit" name="product" value="Tea">Tea</button>
<button type="submit" name="product" value="Coffee">Coffee</button>

The name and value attributes are required to submit the value when the form is submitted (the id attribute is not necessary in this case). The attribute type=submit specifies that clicking on this button causes the form to be submitted.

When the server is handling the submitted form, $_POST['product'] will contain the value "Tea" or "Coffee" depending on which button was clicked.

If you want you can also require the user to confirm before submitting the form (useful when you are implementing a delete button for example).

<button type="submit" name="product" value="Tea" onclick="return confirm('Are you sure you want tea?');">Tea</button>
<button type="submit" name="product" value="Coffee" onclick="return confirm('Are you sure you want coffee?');">Coffee</button>

Upvotes: 20

DrPepperJo
DrPepperJo

Reputation: 722

Like the others said, you probably missunderstood the idea of a unique id. All I have to add is, that I do not like the idea of using "value" as the identifying property here, as it may change over time (i.e. if you want to provide multiple languages).

<input id='submit_tea'    type='submit' name = 'submit_tea'    value = 'Tea' />
<input id='submit_coffee' type='submit' name = 'submit_coffee' value = 'Coffee' />

and in your php script

if( array_key_exists( 'submit_tea', $_POST ) )
{
  // handle tea
}
if( array_key_exists( 'submit_coffee', $_POST ) )
{
  // handle coffee
}

Additionally, you can add something like if( 'POST' == $_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_METHOD' ] ) if you want to check if data was acctually posted.

Upvotes: 8

Orchid Engr
Orchid Engr

Reputation: 48

You can maintain your html as it is but use this php code

<?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $purchase1 = $_POST['Tea'];
    $purchase2 =$_POST['Coffee'];
?>

Upvotes: -1

robbmj
robbmj

Reputation: 16516

The button names are not submit, so the php $_POST['submit'] value is not set. As in isset($_POST['submit']) evaluates to false.

<html>
<form action="" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="submit" />
    <select name="name">
        <option>John</option>
        <option>Henry</option>
    <select>
<!-- 
make sure all html elements that have an ID are unique and name the buttons submit 
-->
    <input id="tea-submit" type="submit" name="submit" value="Tea">
    <input id="coffee-submit" type="submit" name="submit" value="Coffee">
</form>
</html>

<?php
if (isset($_POST['action'])) {
    echo '<br />The ' . $_POST['submit'] . ' submit button was pressed<br />';
}
?>

Upvotes: 52

user4035
user4035

Reputation: 23729

Use this instead:

<input id='tea-submit' type='submit' name = 'submit'    value = 'Tea'>
<input id='coffee-submit' type='submit' name = 'submit' value = 'Coffee'>

Upvotes: 22

developers-have-no-vacation
developers-have-no-vacation

Reputation: 642

To start, using the same ID twice is not a good idea. ID's should be unique, if you need to style elements you should use a class to apply CSS instead.

At last, you defined the name of your submit button as Tea and Coffee, but in your PHP you are using submit as index. your index should have been $_POST['Tea'] for example. that would require you to check for it being set as it only sends one , you can do that with isset().

Buy anyway , user4035 just beat me to it , his code will "fix" this for you.

Upvotes: 7

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