The <textarea> field will not hold and display the value of $message if there is a value in the email <input> field.

Question

the <textarea> default text, held in $message, will not be displayed if there is a value in the email <input> field. Furthermore, the form will submit if there is no message entered... EVEN though we have a conditional at the highest priority specifying an error.

Here is my code:

<?php 

if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {

    // trim removes any white space before and after the variable in case someone typed in a space or a hard return
    $name = trim($_POST["name"]);
    $email = trim($_POST["email"]);
    $message = trim($_POST["message"]);

    // checks is there is a value in each input field
    if ($name == "" OR $email == "" OR $message = "") {
        $error_message = "You must specify a value for the name, email, and message.";
    }

    // Checks that none of the fields has malicious code
    if (!isset($error_message)) {
        foreach($_POST as $value) {
            if (stripos($value,'Content-Type:') !== FALSE){
                $error_message = "There was a problem with the information you entered.";
            }
        }
    }

    // Checks that the spam honeypot field is left blank
    if (!isset($error_message) && $_POST["address"] != "") {
        $error_message = "Your form submission has an error.";
    }

    // Checks that the email is in a valid format
    require_once("inc/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php");
    $mail = new PHPMailer();

    if (!isset($error_message) && !$mail -> ValidateAddress($email)) {
        $error_message = "You must specify a valid email address.";
    }

    if (!isset($error_message)) {
        $email_body = "";
        $email_body = $email_body . "Name: " . $name . "<br>"; 
        $email_body = $email_body .  "Email: " . $email . "<br>";
        $email_body = $email_body .  "Message: " . $message;
        $mail->SetFrom($email, $name);
        $address = "siegetheartist@gmail.com";
        $mail->AddAddress($address, "Siege the Artist");
        $mail->Subject = "Start up Contact Form | " . $name;
        $mail->MsgHTML($email_body);

        if($mail->Send()) {
            header("Location: contact.php?status=thanks"); // redirect
            exit;
        } else {
            $error_message = "There was a problem sending the email: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
        }

    }
}
?>






<?php 
$page_title = "Contact us";
include ("inc/header.php"); 
?>

<section>

<?php 
    // Checks if a $_GET variabe exists. 
    // It exists if values have been sent to the $_GET variable via our form submission. 
    // It then checks the value of our status variable. 
    // If it's set to "thanks" then we want to display this thank you message. 
    // If we do not check the $_GET status exists first, we will get an error message 

    if(isset($_GET["status"]) AND $_GET["status"] == "thanks") { 
        echo '<h1>Email Sent!</h1>';
        echo '<p>Thanks for the email!</p>';
    } else { 

        if (!isset($error_message)) {
            echo '<h1>We\'d love to hear from you!</h1>';
            echo '<p>Send us a message! We always like to hear what the community thinks about the website.</p>';
        } else {
            echo '<h1>Oh oh! Something went wrong.</h1>';
            echo '<p class="#">' . $error_message . '</p>';
            // echo '<pre>' . var_dump($_POST) . '</pre>';
        } 
?>

    <form method="post" action="contact.php">
        <table>
            <tr>
                <th><label for="name">Name</label></th>
                <td><input type="text" name="name" id="name" value="<?php if (isset($name)) { echo $name; } ?>"></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th><label for="email">Email</label></th>
                <td><input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="<?php if (isset($email)) { echo $email; } ?>"></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th><label for="message">Message</label></th>
                <td><textarea name="message" id="message"><?php if (isset($message)) { echo $message; } ?></textarea></td>
            </tr>

            <!-- humans dont fill this out -->
            <tr style="display:none;">
                <th><label for="address">Address</label></th>
                <td><input type="text" name="address" id="address" ><p>Do not fill out the address.</p></td>
            </tr>

        </table>
        <input type="submit" value="Send">
    </form>

<?php 
    } // ends the if else statement 
?>

</section>

<?php include ("inc/footer.php"); ?>

Answer 1 · 2014-11-25T19:19:16Z

November 25, 2014 7:19pm

if ($name == "" OR $email == "" OR $message = "")

This condition on your first code snippet uses a single equal sign on the third part, which sets $message to nothing.

Your condition sets $message to nothing whenever $name and $email are not empty, which is probably the root of your problems.

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carlosjimenez

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The <textarea> field will not hold and display the value of $message if there is a value in the email <input> field.

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