I don't _GET it!

Donny Bahama · #1 Jan 18th, 2007, 05:24

_GET is used to get a querystring value from the URL, right?

Does it not work for some reason if that URL is not generated via a form (with method=get)?

I have a link on a page like so:

Code: Select all

<a href="http://my_other.site/contact.php?ws=this.site">contact</a>

contact.php contains

Code: Select all

<?php
$thissite = $_REQUEST[’ws’];
print "thissite = '".$thissite."'";

but what gets printed is:

thissite = ''

What am I doing wrong?!

ukgeoff · #2 Jan 18th, 2007, 23:31

But your not using $_GET, you are using $_REQUEST!!!

Donny Bahama · #3 Jan 19th, 2007, 07:09

I was using $_GET (same results) - when that didn't work I tried $_REQUEST. I posted the wrong code but my problem is the same either way - it just doesn't work!

grahame · #4 Jan 19th, 2007, 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by ukgeoff

But your not using $_GET, you are using $_REQUEST!!!

$_REQUEST contains everything that's in $_GET, plus $_COOKIE and a couple of other super-globals, so it should work just as well ...

Suggestion, Donny: Try pointing your link at a PHP page containing <?php phpinfo(); ?>. That will let you look at all the various superglobal variables and give you a clue as to what is happening. (I've had a look but couldn't spot anything obviously wrong)

masonbarge · #5 Jan 19th, 2007, 16:21

That quote syntax is downright Byzantine. It's the single quotes that are killing you. Just write

Code: Select all

$thissite=$_GET['ws'];
print "thissite = $thissite";

If that doesn't work, narrow the problem with a few random tests like

Code: Select all

if ($_GET['ws']) { print "<br />$_GET['ws']<br />;
}else{
print '<br />no variable<br />'; }

Donny Bahama · #6 Jan 19th, 2007, 18:56

I should probably point out that I'm not a complete idiot. (No sarcasm there - I know you guys deal with people of all knowledge/skill levels. Mine isn't terribly high, but it's not terribly low, either.

) I started with the logical, correct syntax, and when that didn't work, I tried tweaking the syntax in every way I could think of, including print statements to get a look at the variable values.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grahame

$_REQUEST contains everything that's in $_GET, plus $_COOKIE and a couple of other super-globals, so it should work just as well

I knew that, but when $_GET didn't work, I gave $_REQUEST a try - just in case.

Quote:

Suggestion, Donny: Try pointing your link at a PHP page containing <?php phpinfo(); ?>. That will let you look at all the various superglobal variables and give you a clue as to what is happening.

Thanks, Grahame. I gave that a try, but my knowledge level doesn't extend to the point where I could effectively interpret much of what I saw there. If anyone wants to have a look, here's a link: http://stickpuppy.com/phpinfo.php?site=dhs57.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by masonbarge

That quote syntax is downright Byzantine.It's the single quotes that are killing you. Just write

Code: Select all

$thissite=$_GET['ws'];
print "thissite = $thissite";

Initially, that's precisely what I had written. The Byzantine quote syntax (I got a good chuckle out of that!

) was just a means of trying to see what was in $_GET['ws'] - similar to your

Code: Select all

if ($_GET['ws']) { print "<br />$_GET['ws']<br />;
}else{
print '<br />no variable<br />'; }

Incidentally - I tried it your way (the if staement above), and I got

Quote:

parse error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING

(pointing to the first line of your if statement.) Because I just copied and pasted, I perpetuated your omission of the double quote at the end of the first print statement, but even after I caught and corrected that, I continue to get the parse error. (And I'm just as perplexed by that! This page ought to work, near as I can tell - but it just doesn't.)

The only other odd thing I noticed was that my very first $_GET['ws'] had backquotes surrounding ws. Not sure if this came from my text editor or what, but correcting it didn't fix the problem.

Donny Bahama · #7 Jan 19th, 2007, 19:08

I also tried inserting a listvars function that I've used to debug other troublesome pages in the past. Here's the complete code now:

Code: Select all

<?php
function listvars($v) { 
    global $a; 
    echo "<blockquote>\n"; 
    $q= "while(list(\$key,\$val) = each($".$v. ") ) { ". 
    " echo \"<b>\$key</b>=>\$val.<br>\";". 
    " if(( is_array(\$val)) && (\$key != \"GLOBALS\")) {". 
    " @dd( \$v.\"[\".\$key.\"]\" );". 
    "}}"; 
    eval($q); 
    echo "</blockquote>\n"; 
    } 
$thissite = $_GET['ws'];
print "thissite = '$thissite'";
if (empty ($thissite)) $thissite = "stickpuppy.com";
$cssfile = "stickpuppy.css";
$linkimg_class = "lilpuppy_lr";
$linkimg_src = "img/lilpuppy.jpg";
$admin_email = "webmojo@$thissite";
$guest_email = $_POST['Email'];
$msg_ = $_POST['Message'];
$msg = str_replace("\r", '<br />', $msg_);
listvars("GLOBALS");

I can post the rest of the file, if anyone thinks it will help, but it's just form data/POST data handling; I'm pretty sure the problem lies in the code I've posted. If you want to have a look at the output of that page, here's a link: http://stickpuppy.com/contact_listva...site=dhs57.com I hope someone will see something I've missed.

The page works perfectly except for the stupid querystring. If you want to try it out, feel free: http://stickpuppy.com/contact.php?site=dhs57.com

The only other thought I have is that somehow, maybe this is a problem on the server. Is it possible to disable querystring handling??? My webhost is 1and1.com - are there known issues with their php hosting?

grahame · #8 Jan 19th, 2007, 20:54

The phpinfo confirms that the script IS picking up the parameters from the form - see under PHP Variables; they're listed there. And I host some
of my domains on 1and1 and there's quite a bit of PHP there.

I find myself looking at odd things such as back quotes and forward quotes - or even other special quotes in other fonts. Have you tried with
$thissite = $_GET["ws"];
rather than
$thissite = $_GET['ws'];

By the way - I confirmed the relationship between $_GET and $_REQUEST because I thought the thread might mislead other readers the way it was developing. Sorry if it read otherwise

Donny Bahama · #9 Jan 19th, 2007, 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by grahame

Have you tried with
$thissite = $_GET["ws"];
rather than
$thissite = $_GET['ws'];

No, that's one I haven't tried, but I will. Thanks for the suggestion. As for the $_GET/$_REQUEST issue, no offense was taken or anything; I just wanted to illustrate the I do know a little php!

Donny Bahama · #10 Jan 19th, 2007, 21:18

Well, I tried the double quotes. Still no joy. I also thought to try it in IE, on the longshot chance this was some sort of Firefox bug. Same behavior in IE.

Donny Bahama · #11 Jan 19th, 2007, 22:30

Well, I have a workaround... Source page code:

Code: Select all

<form name="contact" action="http://stickpuppy.com/contact.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="re_site" value="dhs57.com">
<a href='javascript:document.contact.submit();'>contact</a>
</form>

Contact form code:

Code: Select all

$thissite = $_POST['re_site'];

I'm not crazy about using javascript for this, but I didn't want to use some generic html button, either. I guess it'll do until I figure out what the problem is.

masonbarge · #12 Jan 20th, 2007, 11:05

GAH! Javascript = surrender. It defeats one of the purposes of a serverside language, i.e. 100% certainty.

There is a flaw in the code somewhere. Why don't you try posting all the applicable code in one reply? I have done a lot of links just like this and it's a great technique to automate an unlimited menu of pages. I did a page where the database had articles written, and php automatically generated the new link and page using your exact code, i.e. href="...?id=mysqlid" as the pattern link and $id=$_GET['id'] on the new page.

Donny Bahama · #13 Jan 20th, 2007, 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by masonbarge

GAH! Javascript = surrender.

I agree, but surrender is about where I'm at right now! And if it comes down to using javascript or a butt-ugly submit button, I'm going with javascript.

Quote:

I have done a lot of links just like this and it's a great technique to automate an unlimited menu of pages.

Yeah, I've used it extensively on ASP, but I'm still learning the ropes on the php side.

OK - bizarre new development - I changed this:

Code: Select all

$thissite = $_GET['ws'];

to this:

Code: Select all

$thissite = ($_GET['ws']);

and it worked! (Well, sort of.)
On a whim, I changed it back - and it still worked! (Well, sort of.)

By sort of, I mean to say that the print statement yields the passed qs parm, and the input I stuck on the form for debugging has the right value in it as well. But when the e-mail is sent out, it still shows "re: stickpuppy.com" in the subject (instead of "re: whatever.net") - but that's just a minor error somewhere else in the code.

I know the documented changes I posted above probably have nothing to do with why it started working, but I don't care. I'm just glad to get past that hurdle.

ukgeoff · #14 Jan 20th, 2007, 19:12

Below is the code from two test files that I tried and it works perfectly.

Code: Select all

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
<title>Page title</title>
</head>
<body>

<a href='phptesting.html?valuepassed=testedok'>click here</a>

</body>
</html>

Code: Select all

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
<title>Page title</title>
</head>
<body>

    <?php
       $value = $_GET['valuepassed']; 
       print ($value);
   ?>
</body>
</html>

Just a note: these files have the .html extention because my hosting is set to process these files through the php parser.

Donny Bahama · #15 Jan 20th, 2007, 19:23

Thanks, Geoff. Mine was pretty much the same, I think. At this point I've made so many changes trying to debug that I can't be certain, but I posted the code in previous posts above and it doesn't look any different now (except for changing a variable name and fixing other problems downstream - which I found after this crazy thing started working!)

edit: Initially, my code looked exactly like the code mason posted here: http://www.webforumz.com/php-forum/1....htm#post87358 - it was immediately preceded by the

PHP: Select all


<?php

tag - which was the first line in the file.

Donny Bahama · #16 Jan 20th, 2007, 19:47

All's well that ends well!

It's working beautifully, and I now have a nice (if I do so say so myself) little contact form. On any page of any of my sites, I can now use a contact link to http://stickpuppy.com/contact.php?ws=webforumz.com

Here's a sample of the confirmation page displayed after the user submits a simple form (name, e-ddress and message text):

Quote:

Your message:
Hey, man- that file is;

"c:\dude\porn.mov"

has been sent to the the_site.com site admin.
A copy of the message has been sent to thedude ot tiki shack dat cam.
Thank you for your correspondence.
Someone will reply as soon as possible.

NOTE: All e-ddresses display normally - they've been obfuscated for this post.
NOTE 2: The use of a semi-colon, double quotes and backslashes was intentional (for testing the escape handling code - which also works nicely).

The user receives an e-mail which looks like:

Quote:

"webmonster ot stick puppy dat cam" to thedude

Subject: Confirmed - your message to the_site.com site admin

Message body:
Your message was sent to the the_site.com site admin:
-----------------------------
From: Jeffrey Lebowski:
E-mail: thedude ot tiki shack dat cam

Message: Hey, man- that file is;

"c:\dude\porn.mov"

-----------------------------

And I receive a message like this one:

Quote:

Jeffrey Lebowski <thedude ot tiki shack dat cam> to webmonster

Subject: Message from thedude ot tiki shack dat cam re: the_site.com

Message body:
Name: Jeffrey Lebowski:
E-mail: thedude ot tiki shack dat cam
re: the_site.com

Message: Hey, man- that file is;

"c:\dude\porn.mov"

-----------------------------
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
IP: 6XX.X8X.105.131

I'm sure decent contact forms are a dime a dozen and most everybody probably has one they like already, but if anyone's interested, let me know and I'll post the code for mine. (It even has a little image image bling to lively up the page.

)

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
[SOLVED] $_GET['ting'] Pages (Safely) With PHP

		Webforumz.com > Main Forums > Program Your Website > PHP Forum
I don't _GET it!