PHP form posting blank values

Question

I'm trying to make a simple submission form in my index.html file that will send an email with the values, but they are always blank after grabbing them with $_POST. Here is my form:

<form id="contact-form" action="/rtp/php/submit.php" method="POST" enctype="text/plain">
            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-md-6">
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label for="name">
                            Name</label>
                        <input type="text" name="theName" class="form-control" id="theName" placeholder="Enter name" required="required" />
                    </div>
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label for="email">
                            Email Address</label>
                        <div class="input-group">
                            <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-envelope"></span>
                            </span>
                            <input type="email" name="theEmail" class="form-control" id="theEmail" placeholder="Enter email" required="required" /></div>
                    </div>
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label for="subject">
                            Subject</label>
                        <select id="subject" name="theSubject" id="theSubject" class="form-control" required="required">
                            <option value="na" selected="">Choose One:</option>
                            <option value="service">Criminal Defense</option>
                            <option value="service">Personal Injury</option>
                            <option value="service">Consitutional Law</option>
                            <option value="service">Immigration</option>
                            <option value="suggestion">General Inquiry</option>
                            <option value="suggestion">Scholarship</option>

                        </select>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-6">
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label for="name">
                            Message</label>
                        <textarea name="message" name="theMessage" id="theMessage" class="form-control" rows="9" cols="25" required="required"
                            placeholder="What can we help you with?"></textarea>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-12">
                    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-skin pull-right" id="btnContactUs">
                        Send Message</button>
                </div>
            </div>
            </form>

And here is my submission script:

 <?php
ini_set('display_startup_errors',1);
ini_set('display_errors',1);
error_reporting(-1);

// Set destination
$email_to = "bali*****l.com";
$email_from = "br******offee";
$email_subject = "Rai*******rship";

// Grab fields
$name = isset($_POST["theName"]) ? $_POST['theName'] : 'Name Not set';
$email = isset($_POST['theEmail']) ? $_POST['theEmail'] : 'Email not set';
$subject = isset($_POST['theSubject']) ? $_POST['theSubject'] : 'subject not set';
$message = isset($_POST['theMessage']) ? $_POST['theMessage'] : 'message not set:(';

$email_message = "Form details below.\n\n";


// Clean up
function clean_string($string) {

$bad = array("content-type","bcc:","to:","cc:","href");

return str_replace($bad,"",$string);

}

// Set string
$email_message .= $name."\n";
$email_message .= $email."\n";
$email_message .= $subject."\n";
$email_message .= $message."\n";


$headers = 'From: '.$email_from."\r\n".

'Reply-To: '.$email_from."\r\n" .

'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

@mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers);  
    print("The message -> $email_message");

?> 

Congratulations, you are entered to win! You should hear from us shortly :)

All variables end up blank. What am I doing wrong? Any help is appreciated, I've been trying to figure this out for hours. I do not understand why the POST function is not grabbing the values and passing them through.

Answer 1

I agree that you can just remove the enctype tag altogether -- I've never needed to include that on a form sent via Post.

As an additional aside, though:

Do you mean that the variables are blank if the web form is left blank?

When a form is submitted via POST and a field is empty, it is sent as an empty string.

So, for example, if you left the entire form blank then $_POST['theName'] would be sent as "".

ISSET will return true on a blank string -- so, all of your ISSET tests are returning true.

Try !empty instead. For example:

$name = !empty($_POST['theName']) ? $_POST['theName'] : 'No Name Set';

If it is returning blanks even when something is entered on the form please clarify.

Also, in your <select><option> tags, POST is going to send the value of whatever is selected. You currently have multiple Options with the same value. It does NOT send what is between the <option> tag (in other words, whether they choose "Criminal Defense" or "Personal Injury" $_POST['theSubject'] will be "service" for both.

Answer 2

remove enctype="text/plain" from form tag and check.