After a user fills out a form correctly, what do you do with the form data? A very intuitive approach that does not require too much setup on the server is to write the data into a file on the server. Writing Form Data into a File (form-save.php; excerpt)<?php require_once 'stripFormSlashes.inc.php'; ?> ... <?php if (isset($_POST['Submit']) && isset($_POST['fieldname']) && trim($_POST['fieldname']) != '') { echo '<h1>Thank you for filling out this form!</h1>'; $data = ''; $data = @file_get_contents('formdata.txt'); if ($data != '') { $data = unserialize($data); } $data[] = $_POST; file_put_contents('formdata.txt', serialize($data)); } else { ?> <form method="post" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']); ?>"> ... </form> <?php } ?> The preceding code contains a very naïve approach: All data is stored in a file on the server. When the form is submitted, the file is read in and unserialized into an array. Then, the form data is appended to the array. Finally, the array is serialized again and written back to the file. Figure 4.3 shows this file in a text editor. Figure 4.3. Data written into the form (can later be unserialized).
|