POST vs. GET

Dear All,

I have a very complex form on a page which when submitted, posts all the
variables to another page that processes and displays them in a list. I want
the user then to be able to send theses details on to the *next* page thats
'mails' them to me. I can do this pretty well with a just a few form field
entries, like so:

<? echo '<a href="mail.php?item1=', urlencode($item1), '">'; ?>

But with over 200 different form fields to be filled in, my URL soon becomes
bigger than 1000 chars! So I guess I need to use the POST command to send
the variables instead, right? I can see how the POST command works inside a
form, but I can't seem to grasp how it's syntax works outside of a <form
form>, if at all. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? If anyone can take
even a few moments to offer advice I would be so grateful, cos I have been
reading many, many tutorials and forum posts without quite getting the
answers I would love to know all afternoon and evening!

Thankyou!

Steve

"Steve" <luckylucky200@hotmail.com> wrote in message
 news:e9ee7310929ef02e11b6035a1905aa99@ne
ws.teranews.com...
> Dear All,
>
> I have a very complex form on a page which when submitted, posts all the
> variables to another page that processes and displays them in a list. I
want
> the user then to be able to send theses details on to the *next* page
thats
> 'mails' them to me. I can do this pretty well with a just a few form field
> entries, like so:
>
> <? echo '<a href="mail.php?item1=', urlencode($item1), '">'; ?>
>
> But with over 200 different form fields to be filled in, my URL soon
becomes
> bigger than 1000 chars! So I guess I need to use the POST command to send
> the variables instead, right? I can see how the POST command works inside
a
> form, but I can't seem to grasp how it's syntax works outside of a <form
> form>, if at all. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? If anyone can take
> even a few moments to offer advice I would be so grateful, cos I have been
> reading many, many tutorials and forum posts without quite getting the
> answers I would love to know all afternoon and evening!
>
> Thankyou!
>
> Steve
>
>

I'de hate to fill out one of your forms ;-)

They both submit a $querystring variable.GET or POST should not matter. The
size limitations are well beyond what you are talking about.

From a practical sense, POST probably makes more sense. What do you mean by
"how it works syntax" ? Nothing should be different.

if you set up a form and use post you dont need all that urlencode.. all you
do in your form is have an email msg string and in the msg part use
$_POST[variable] in each place you want each variable...

"Steve" <luckylucky200@hotmail.com> wrote in message
 news:e9ee7310929ef02e11b6035a1905aa99@ne
ws.teranews.com...
> Dear All,
>
> I have a very complex form on a page which when submitted, posts all the
> variables to another page that processes and displays them in a list. I
want
> the user then to be able to send theses details on to the *next* page
thats
> 'mails' them to me. I can do this pretty well with a just a few form field
> entries, like so:
>
> <? echo '<a href="mail.php?item1=', urlencode($item1), '">'; ?>
>
> But with over 200 different form fields to be filled in, my URL soon
becomes
> bigger than 1000 chars! So I guess I need to use the POST command to send
> the variables instead, right? I can see how the POST command works inside
a
> form, but I can't seem to grasp how it's syntax works outside of a <form
> form>, if at all. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? If anyone can take
> even a few moments to offer advice I would be so grateful, cos I have been
> reading many, many tutorials and forum posts without quite getting the
> answers I would love to know all afternoon and evening!
>
> Thankyou!
>
> Steve
>
>

Thanks for the replys!

I guess I was tired and not explaining my situation very clearly last night.

It's basically as simple as this: forget the whole forms thing. I have a
page with 200 variables set up. I need to pass them on to another page. I
thought that by going the way of tagging them onto the end of my URL would
make it over 1000 characters and therefore not feasible. Am I right or
wrong, there? If I'm right then I need to send them through the POST command
I think, but I only see examples of how to use that in the context of a
form, but thats no good to me at this stage as the form has already been
filled and the variables set up. I simply need to pass a large amount of
variables form page to page in a simple way.

Sorry for being so obtuse before!

Steve

Hi!  Thanks for replying! You seem right about POST - I finally get it now!
In fact it works just fine on the page immediately after my form is
submitted, but when I paste the same command in to an HTML document which is
*a couple of pages after* the form, it just returns no values at all, almost
like it has forgotten them. Whats the problem here, do you think?

Steve>

$_POST vars only carry over to the very next page, you would have to use an

<input type="hidden" name="varName" value="$_POST[var]">

to use them on another form on another page... or perhaps you could start a
session by using session_start(); at the top of each page and store all vars
in the $_SESSION global var... this would be done by making a statement like
this:

$_SESSION[var] = "$_POST[var]";

this way as long as the session is active, no matter how many pages later..
the vars will still be there...


"Steve" <luckylucky200@hotmail.com> wrote in message
 news:8a73d05a36e9d1fa09c0598f1c98676f@ne
ws.teranews.com...
> Hi!  Thanks for replying! You seem right about POST - I finally get it
now!
> In fact it works just fine on the page immediately after my form is
> submitted, but when I paste the same command in to an HTML document which
is
> *a couple of pages after* the form, it just returns no values at all,
almost
> like it has forgotten them. Whats the problem here, do you think?
>
> Steve>
>
>

Steve wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I have a very complex form on a page which when submitted, posts all the
> variables to another page that processes and displays them in a list. I
> want the user then to be able to send theses details on to the *next* page
> thats 'mails' them to me.

If you want values to persist over several pages, it's probably easier to
set up a temporary session to hold them. You can use the post trick that
the others talked about, but at the top of the very next page, start a
session and then put the variables in there.
<?
# This is the top of the first page to receive the variables
session_start();
$_SESSION['var1'] = $_POST['var1'];
# and so on for all of them.
?>
I don't know of any way to just chuck all posted vars into a session with a
single command, unfortunately. But if somebody wants to write a class to do
this, I'd want a copy please :)

OK, now you have a session. At the top of every page you want the vars to be
available, you must call session_start() and you can then extract the vars
using $_SESSION['var1'] to $_SESSION['var200plus']. Finally, when yo
u don't
need the session variables any more, call session_destroy().

You'll also find chocolate cake at this address:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php


Albe

--
http://www.ninja.up.ac.za

On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:18:06 +0200, .:Ninja wrote:

>         # This is the top of the first page to receive the variables
>         session_start();
>         $_SESSION['var1'] = $_POST['var1'];
>         # and so on for all of them.
> I don't know of any way to just chuck all posted vars into a session with
> a single command, unfortunately. But if somebody wants to write a class to
> do this, I'd want a copy please :)

Off the top of my head, I think something like this would work:

foreach (array_keys ($_POST) as $key) {	$_SESSION[$key] = $_POST	
1;$key]; }

HTH,
La'ie Techie

POST can send bigger data than GET, something like 2 to 4 times more.

Savut

<Nikola Tesla> wrote in message news:Z-Sdnd-gWLsBgf_dRVn-tA@comcast.com...
>
> "Steve" <luckylucky200@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>  news:e9ee7310929ef02e11b6035a1905aa99@ne
ws.teranews.com... 
> want 
> thats 
> becomes 
> a 
>
> I'de hate to fill out one of your forms ;-)
>
> They both submit a $querystring variable.GET or POST should not matter.
> The
> size limitations are well beyond what you are talking about.
>
> From a practical sense, POST probably makes more sense. What do you mean
> by
> "how it works syntax" ? Nothing should be different.
>
>
>
>
>

On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 16:17:43 -0500, "Savut" <webki@hotmail.com> wrote:

>POST can send bigger data than GET, something like 2 to 4 times more.

Er, I think you'll find it's considerably more than that.

--
Andy Hassall <andy@andyh.co.uk> / Space: disk usage analysis tool
http://www.andyh.co.uk         / http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space