Creating a guest book

StevenF · 01-23-2008, 06:08 PM

Hello there,

Some one mentioned that I created a guest book to improve my PHP skills, I thought this was a really good idea and took on the challenge! Unfortunately I don't think I have the skills right now to be able to create one, but here's what I've done so far:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
  <title>Guest Book</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheets/style.css" />
  
  <script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">

		<!--This will hide our code from old browsers
		   
		  // JavaScript code goes here

      function validateForm()
      {
         with (document.guest_book) {
            
            errorfields=""
            
            //Check Name
            if (username.value == "") {
               errorfields=errorfields + "Name \n"
            }
            
            //Check email for @ and '.'
            if ((Email.value.length <6) || (Email.value.indexOf('@') <0) || (Email.value.indexOf('.') <0))  {
                errorfields=errorfields + "Please enter a valid Email address \n"
            }
            
            //Check comment
            if (comment.value == "") {
               errorfields=errorfields + "Please write your comment \n"
            }
            
            
            if (errorfields!="") {
               alert("The following fields much be entered: \n\n"  + errorfields)
               return false;
            }
        }
        return true;
      }

	// End hiding script from non-JavaScript browsers-->

	   </script>
	   
	   <noscript>Your browser has disabled Javascript</noscript>
	   
</head>
<body>

<!--Sign guest book form-->

<div align="center">
  <form name="guest_book" id="guestbooktable" method="post" action="results.php" onSubmit="return validateForm()">
    <table>
      <tr>
        <td>  *Name:   </td>
        <td>  <input type=text name=username size=30 /> </td>
      </tr>
      
      <tr>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      
      <tr>
        <td>  Email:   </td>
        <td>  <input type=text name=Email size=30 /> </td>
      </tr>
      
      <tr>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      
      <tr>
        <td>  Website:   </td>
        <td>  <input type=text name=website size=30 /> </td>
      </tr>
      
      <tr>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      
      <tr>
        <td>  Comment:   </td>
        <td>  <textarea name=comment rows=5 cols=40></textarea> </td>
      </tr>
      
       <tr>
        <td>  </td>
        <td>  <input type=submit name=submit value=Submit /> <input type=reset name=reset value=Reset /> </td>
      </tr>
    </table> 
  </form>
</div>
</body>
</html>

I've created a form and validated all the fields. I've then created a PHP page:

Code:

<?
$username=$_POST['username'];
$email=$_POST['Email'];
$websiteurl=$_POST['website'];
$comment=$_POST['comment'];
?>

<head>
	<title>Cookies</title>
		<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">
			<!--This will hide our code from old browsers
		
		//Date
       now = new Date
       
	   dayNames = new Array ("Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday")
              
	   monthNames = new Array ("January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November",              "December")

		dateNames = new Array ( "", "1st",  "2nd",  "3rd",  "4th",  "5th",  "6th",  "7th",  "8th", "9th", "10th", "11th", "12th", "13th", "14th",             "15th", "16th", "17th", "18th", "19th", "20th", "21st", "22nd", "23rd", "24th", "25th", "26th", "27th", "28th", "29th", "30th", "31st")
</script>
	   
	   <noscript>Your browser has disabled Javascript</noscript>
</head>
	
<div align="center">
	<table border="1">
	  <tr>
		<td width="74" rowspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
		<td width="435">
			<? echo $username; ?>  | <? echo $email; ?>  | 
			<script  language="javascript"  type="text/javascript">
              //Day
              document.writeln(dayNames[now.getDay()])
              //Date
              document.writeln(dateNames[now.getDate()])
              //Month
              document.writeln(monthNames[now.getMonth()])
              //Year
              document.write(now.getFullYear())

              </script>
		</td>
	  </tr>
	  <tr>
		<td><? echo $comment; ?></td>
	  </tr>
	</table>
</div>

What it does at the moment is shows all of the data entered in the form by using _POST. I'm not sure yet how I get that data to stay there so I can exit the page and leave another comment. Is this difficult?

Thanks,
Steven