Calling a PHP function from an HTML form in the same file

Question

I m trying to execute a PHP function in the same page after the user enters a text and presses a submit button   The first I think of is using forms  When the user submits a form  a PHP function will be executed in the same page  The user will not be directed to another page  The processing will be done and displayed in the same page  without reloading    Here is what I reach to   In the test php file    lt form action  test php  method  post  gt       lt input type  text  name  user  placeholder  enter a text    gt       lt input type  submit  value  submit  onclick  test      gt   lt  form gt    The PHP code   test   function   is in the same file also    lt  php     function test             echo   POST  user       Just an example of processing         gt    However  I still getting a problem  Does anyone have an idea

User · Answer

You have a big misunderstanding of how the web works.

Basically, things happen this way:

User (well, the browser) requests test.php from your server
On the server, test.php runs, everything inside is executed, and a resulting HTML page (which includes your form) will be sent back to browser
The browser displays the form, the user can interact with it.
The user submits the form (to the URL defined in action, which is the same file in this case), so everything starts from the beginning (except the data in the form will also be sent). New request to the server, PHP runs, etc. That means the page will be refreshed.

You were trying to invoke test() from your onclick attribute. This technique is used to run a client-side script, which is in most cases Javascript (code will run on the user's browser). That has nothing to do with PHP, which is server-side, resides on your server and will only run if a request comes in. Please read Client-side Versus Server-side Coding for example.

If you want to do something without causing a page refresh, you have to use Javascript to send a request in the background to the server, let PHP do what it needs to do, and receive an answer from it. This technique is basically called AJAX, and you can find lots of great resources on it using Google (like Mozilla's amazing tutorial).

User · Answer

Take a look at this example    lt  DOCTYPE HTML gt    lt html gt   lt head gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt     lt  php    define variables and set to empty values  name    email    gender    comment    website        if    SERVER  REQUEST METHOD       POST         name   test input   POST  name         email   test input   POST  email         website   test input   POST  website         comment   test input   POST  comment         gender   test input   POST  gender        function test input  data        data   trim  data       data   stripslashes  data       data   htmlspecialchars  data      return  data      gt    lt h2 gt PHP Form Validation Example lt  h2 gt   lt form method  post  action   lt  php echo htmlspecialchars   SERVER  PHP SELF      gt   gt      Name   lt input type  text  name  name  gt      lt br gt  lt br gt     E-mail   lt input type  text  name  email  gt      lt br gt  lt br gt     Website   lt input type  text  name  website  gt      lt br gt  lt br gt     Comment   lt textarea name  comment  rows  5  cols  40  gt  lt  textarea gt      lt br gt  lt br gt     Gender      lt input type  radio  name  gender  value  female  gt Female     lt input type  radio  name  gender  value  male  gt Male     lt br gt  lt br gt      lt input type  submit  name  submit  value  Submit  gt    lt  form gt    lt  php echo   lt h2 gt Your Input  lt  h2 gt    echo  name  echo   lt br gt    echo  email  echo   lt br gt    echo  website  echo   lt br gt    echo  comment  echo   lt br gt    echo  gender    gt    lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

in case you don t want to use Ajax   and want your page to reload     lt  php if isset   POST  user      echo   POST  user      just an example of processing         gt

User · Answer

This is the better way that I use to create submit without loading in a form   You can use some CSS to stylise the iframe the way you want   A php result will be loaded into the iframe    lt form method  post  action  test php  target  view  gt     lt input type  text  name  anyname  palceholder  Enter your name   gt     lt input type  submit  name  submit  value  submit   gt     lt  form gt   lt iframe name  view  frameborder  0  style  width 100   gt     lt  iframe gt

User · Answer

That s now how PHP works  test   will execute when the page is loaded  not when the submit button is clicked   To do this sort of thing  you have to have the onclick attribute do an AJAX call to a PHP file

User · Answer

Here is a full php script to do what you re describing  though pointless  You need to read up on server-side vs  client-side  PHP can t run on the client-side  you have to use javascript to interact with the server  or put up with a page refresh  If you can t understand that  there is no way you ll be able to use my code  or anyone else s  to your benefit   The following code performs AJAX call without jQuery  and calls the same script to stream XML to the AJAX  It then inserts your username and a  lt br  gt  in a div below the user box   Please go back to learning the basics before trying to pursue something as advanced as AJAX  You ll only be confusing yourself in the end and potentially wasting other people s money    lt  php     function test             header  Content-Type  text xml            echo   lt  xml version   1 0   standalone   yes    gt  lt user gt     GET  user     lt  user gt      output an xml document            if isset   GET  user              test          else     gt  lt html gt       lt head gt           lt title gt Test lt  title gt           lt script type  text javascript  gt              function do ajax                     if window XMLHttpRequest                       xmlhttp new XMLHttpRequest                      else                       xmlhttp new ActiveXObject  Microsoft XMLHTTP                                      xmlhttp onreadystatechange   function                        if  xmlhttp readyState  4  amp  amp  xmlhttp status  200                                                var xmlDoc   xmlhttp responseXML                          data xmlDoc getElementsByTagName  user   0  childNodes 0  nodeValue                          mydiv   document getElementById  Test                            mydiv appendChild document createTextNode data                            mydiv appendChild document createElement  br                                                             xmlhttp open  GET    lt  php echo   SERVER  PHP SELF      gt  user   document getElementById  username   value true                   xmlhttp send                           lt  script gt       lt  head gt       lt body gt           lt form action  test php  method  post  gt               lt input type  text  name  user  placeholder  enter a text  id  username   gt               lt input type  button  value  submit  onclick  do ajax      gt           lt  form gt           lt div id  Test  gt  lt  div gt       lt  body gt   lt  html gt  lt  php     gt

User · Answer

Use SAJAX or switch to JavaScript     Sajax is an open source tool to make   programming websites using the Ajax   framework     also known as   XMLHTTPRequest or remote scripting       as easy as possible  Sajax makes it   easy to call PHP  Perl or Python   functions from your webpages via   JavaScript without performing a   browser refresh

User · Answer

You can submit the form without refreshing the page  but to my knowledge it is impossible without using a JavaScript Ajax call to a PHP script on your server   The following example uses the jQuery JavaScript library   HTML   lt form method    post  action      id    theForm  gt       lt  form gt    JavaScript    function             theForm   submit function             var data    a 5 amp b 6 amp c 7             ajax               url   path to php file php               data  data              success  function html                       anything you want to do upon success here                    alert html      alert the output from the PHP Script                                   return false                Upon submission  the anonymous Javascript function will be called  which simply sends a request to your PHP file  which will need to be in a separate file  btw   The data above needs to be a URL-encoded query string that you want to send to the PHP file  basically all of the current values of the form fields   These will appear to your server-side PHP script in the   GET super global   An example is below   var data    a 5 amp b 6 amp c 7     If that is your data string  then the PHP script will see this as   echo   GET  a        5 echo   GET  b        6 echo   GET  c        7   You  however  will need to construct the data from the form fields as they exist for your form  such as   var data    user         user   val       You will need to tag each form field with an  id   the above id is  user     After the PHP script runs  the success function is called  and any and all output produced by the PHP script will be stored in the variable html       success  function html        alert html

User · Answer

This cannot be done in the fashion you are talking about  PHP is server-side while the form exists on the client-side  You will need to look into using JavaScript and or Ajax if you don t want to refresh the page  test php  lt form action  quot javascript void 0   quot  method  quot post quot  gt       lt input type  quot text quot  name  quot user quot  placeholder  quot enter a text quot    gt       lt input type  quot submit quot  value  quot submit quot    gt   lt  form gt    lt script type  quot text javascript quot  gt         quot form quot   submit function            var str     this  serialize              ajax  getResult php   str  function result               alert result      The result variable will contain any text echoed by getResult php                   return false            lt  script gt   It will call getResult php and pass the serialized form to it so the PHP can read those values  Anything getResult php echos will be returned to the JavaScript function in the result variable back on test php and  in this case  shown in an alert box  getResult php  lt  php     echo  quot The name you typed is   quot      REQUEST  user      gt   NOTE This example uses jQuery  a third-party  JavaScript wrapper  I suggest you first develop a better understanding of how these web technologies work together before complicating things for yourself further

User · Answer

Without reloading  using HTML and PHP only it is not possible  but this can be very similar to what you want  but you have to reload    lt  php     function test             echo   POST  user               if  isset   POST          If it is the first time  it does nothing         test            gt    lt form action  test php  method  post  gt       lt input type  text  name  user  placeholder  enter a text    gt       lt input type  submit  value  submit  onclick  test      gt   lt  form gt

[php] Calling a PHP function from an HTML form in the same file

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