Retain textbox value

Question

My Code:

<html>
<head>
<title>A BASIC HTML FORM</title>

<?PHP
if (isset($_POST['Submit1'])) {
$username = $_POST['username'];
}
?>
</head>
<body>
<Form name ="form1" Method ="POST" Action ="basicForm.php">
<Input Type = "text" Value ="<?PHP print $username ;?>" Name ="username">
<Input Type = "Submit" Name = "Submit1" Value = "Login">
</FORM>
</body>
</html>

Problem: The PHP code gets displayed in the textbox instead of the actual value

Demonstration

That sounds like the server doesn't have PHP installed, or configured correctly as the code is being interpreted as plain text — fullybaked, May 07 '13 at 11:13
@Pietu1998 — Why? They are all equivalent to the existing code. — Quentin, May 07 '13 at 11:18
@Quentin Well, an old version or something could not work e.g. with uppercase ``. And also it looks better :) — PurkkaKoodari, May 07 '13 at 11:20
@CORRUPT — It's case insensitive. Lower case is convention, not default. — Quentin, May 07 '13 at 11:21

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

That syntax is correct (albeit vulnerable to XSS).

If it doesn't work, then you aren't using a server that supports PHP for the file you are loading.

PHP, on the WWW, only works when the page is accessed:

Through a web server
That has PHP installed
That knows that the file you are loading contains PHP and should be processed by the PHP engine (this is usually done by giving it a .php file extension).

Update: You have edited your question to include a screen grab. This confirms this answer. You are trying to load the PHP from your file system directly into your browser (with a file:/// URI). You need to access it through a web server (with an http:// URI).

As @CORRUPT points out in a comment. You don't give $username a default value, so you will get an error if the POST data isn't set. I suggest setting it to an empty string before the if (isset($_POST['Submit1'])) { line.

@Binoj Also make sure your file is called `something.php` and not `something.html` — Arnold Daniels, May 07 '13 at 11:17

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 07 '13 at 11:33

Try Below code:

<html>
<head>
<title>A BASIC HTML FORM</title>

<?PHP
if (isset($_POST['Submit1'])) {
$username = $_POST['username'];
}else{
$username='';
}
?>
</head>
<body>
<Form name ="form1" Method ="POST" Action ="basicForm.php">
<Input Type = "text" Value ="<?PHP print $username ;?>" Name ="username">
<Input Type = "Submit" Name = "Submit1" Value = "Login">
</FORM>
</body>
</html>

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 24 '13 at 23:04

Write this function in the php block:

function prepopulate($name) { 
 if(isset($_POST[$name])) { 
  return $_POST[$name]; 
 } 
 else { 
  return ""; 
 } 
}

and then in the HTML part

<FORM NAME ="form1" METHOD ="POST" ACTION = "">
<input name="fname" type="text" value="<?php echo prepopulate('fname');?>">
<input name="lname" type="text" value="<?php echo prepopulate('lname');?>">
</FORM>

You just have to pass the name of the textbox to the function prepopulate to retain it after form submit.

Retain textbox value

3 Answers3