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When I was learning Php with Mysql, I got a problem : 

<form action="?" method="POST">
    .
    .
    .
</form>

Why do we put "?" in the action attribute?
PS: this form was for inserting text into a database.

Actually, I have an Index.php file which is the controller, and 2 files (form.html.php and joke.html.php as templates). In the tutorial, I first clicked on a link "add joke" to include the form.html.php file and in this form there is <form action="?"> </form> and a submit <input>. When I click on submit, the controller index tests and executes the inserted SQL query.

Thanks.

Joe DF
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learner
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    "?" is used to form GET variable query strings. This would submit the form (with form-encoded POST data) to the same page it's on but set no variables. – buley Mar 11 '14 at 01:03
  • But in addition to posting to the same URL, it would blank any existing query string... – Michael Berkowski Mar 11 '14 at 01:08
  • Beware the ``. – EthanB Mar 11 '14 at 01:11
  • Please read this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1131781/is-it-a-good-practice-to-use-an-empty-url-for-a-html-forms-action-attribute-a – Popnoodles Mar 11 '14 at 01:12
  • Actually , I have an Index.php which is the controller ! and 2 files (form.html.php and joke.html.php as templates) and in the tutorial first I click on a link "add joke" to include the form.html.php and in this form there is this
    and a submin and when I click on submit the controller index tests and execute the inserting sql query .     – learner Mar 11 '14 at 01:17
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    This has nothing to do with either PHP or MySQL. It is an HTML question. – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 11 '14 at 01:19
  • In the book he explained it like this way , but I didn't get it : "instead of leaving the action attribute empty (""), we set its value to ?. As we’ll see in a moment, the URL used to display the form in this example will feature a query string, and setting the action to ? strips that query string off the URL when submitting the form." – learner Mar 11 '14 at 01:24
  • Okay' I understand it now ! I will explain it well : The main page is printing my jokes in my database (the data are jokes) , Okay! when I want to add a joke I have to click a link : ... when I click on it the link will change , and it will be : "localhost/a/?addjoke" So the form has a textarea with a variable "joketext" where the joke is stored . the index uses the if (isset($_POST['joketext'])) {}; so the $_POST has to find the joketext variable, so that's why the action="?", to strip the link "localhost/a/?addjoke" when submitting the form. Thank you anyway :) – learner Mar 11 '14 at 01:54
  • This `` and `isset($_POST['joketext'])` are two different animals altogether. Your `href` demands a GET method and not a POST. Why don't you just post your whole code and let the people decide. – Funk Forty Niner Mar 11 '14 at 02:21
  • I don't know, I'm applying the tutorial. Maybe to teach me how to control many webpages from a single one (index.php) and the others as templates. clicking the href include the form , and when you submit the action ="?" will strip the URL and send the variable "joketext" from the textarea to execute the sql query :) – learner Mar 11 '14 at 02:33

2 Answers2

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Personally don't ever do that.... Use action="action.php" or use action="" post to the current URL.

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish with ? in the action attribute.

Dummy Code
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  • What '?' would accomplish is the URI the form is posted to would just be the page the form is displayed on. – Popnoodles Mar 11 '14 at 01:09
  • @Popnoodles so why not just leave it blank or take it out? Just wondering. – Dummy Code Mar 11 '14 at 01:13
  • Leaving it blank and taking it out are the same thing, neither of which are a good idea. See this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1131781/is-it-a-good-practice-to-use-an-empty-url-for-a-html-forms-action-attribute-a – Popnoodles Mar 11 '14 at 01:13
  • @Popnoodles ahh... so this question really is irrelevant because the OP is actually doing it correctly? – Dummy Code Mar 11 '14 at 01:14
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    I'm not entirely sure if it's correct to do that. Why wouldn't you put `action="#"` to also preserve any GET vars? ...Not that I mix them. I always point to a file. – Popnoodles Mar 11 '14 at 01:16
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    @Popnoodles Same, I'm going to have to look into it :) haha – Dummy Code Mar 11 '14 at 01:37
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"We" don't and "You" shouldn't do so either.

  • If you want to POST the data to the current URL, leave it empty, i.e. action="".
  • If you want to POST to another URL, put that URL in there, e.g. action="save.php".
ThiefMaster
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