Here's another useful type of HTML controlpassword controls. From a PHP point of view, these controls work just like text fields; but they're different from the user's point of view. The user sees only asterisks (*) each time he or she types a key instead of letters, so this control is handy for reading passwords and other sensitive data. You can see an example, phppassword.html, in Example 5-13. This example asks the user what the password is by using a password control. Example 5-13. Using password controls, phppassword.html <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Using Password Controls </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <CENTER> <H1> Using Password Controls </H1> <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="phppassword.php"> What's the password? <INPUT NAME="Password" TYPE="PASSWORD"> <BR> <BR> <INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE=Submit> </FORM> </CENTER> </BODY> </HTML> You can see what this page looks like in Figure 5-13, where the user has already typed in a password (which in this case is "Open sesame") into a password control named Password. Figure 5-13. Using a password control.Although you can't read the password when you type it in, the password is available to your PHP code. Use $_REQUEST["Password"], as you see in phppassword.php, Example 5-14. Example 5-14. Retrieving data from password controls, phppassword.php<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Retrieving Password Data </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <CENTER> <H1> Retrieving Password Data </H1> You entered: <BR> <?php echo $_REQUEST["Password"]; ?> </CENTER> </BODY> </HTML> The result appears in Figure 5-14, where we've been successful in reading the data from the password control. As you'd expect, in a real application, you'd want to check the password against a password list and deny access unless it checks out. Figure 5-14. Reading data from a password control. |