Equivalant to raw_input (of python) in PHP?

Question

I am not too much familiar with PHP, but I wonder how to ask for an input inside a function in PHP ? With python it would be for example:

def F(q) :
    a = raw_input(q) // how to do this inside a function with PHP?
    // do something with a
    return something 

print F("how bla bla bla ?")
print F("What bla ?")
print F("When bla bla ?")

I am not sure how to ask for an input inside a function (each time it is called) since we need to define a form and get the value using an $_POST['aaa'] for example !

I have tried to do this but I don't know if it is the right way, because what I want is to ask for the input inside the function (each time it is called).

<form action="index.php" method="post">
    Name:  <input type="text" name="answer" /><br />
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit me!" />
</form>

<?php
function F($q)
{
    echo $q;
    $a = $_POST['answer']; // a = raw_input(q)
    $ret = strcmp($a, 'y') == 0 ? 1 : 0;
    return $ret;
}

echo F("how bla bla bla ?")
echo F("What bla ?")
echo F("When bla bla ?")

Answer 1

The problem you have is that PHP is evaluated before html is, since you don't have anything to "exclude" the function prior to the user hitting the submit button, it's parsing the whole thing and throwing error on the fact that the $_POST array is empty, more specifically, that the 'answer' key doesn't exist inside of $_POST.

to fix your problem with $_POST having an undefined index of 'answer' simply make it wait until the $_POST array has been populated by the submitted form:

Assuming this file is index.php:

<form action="index.php" method="post">
    Name:  <input type="text" name="answer" /><br />
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit me!" />
</form>

<?php
function F($q)
{
    echo $q;
    $a = $_POST['answer']; // a = raw_input(q)
    $ret = strcmp($a, 'y') == 0 ? 1 : 0;
    return $ret;
}

if(isset($_POST['submit'])){
    F("ha ha ha ?")
}

I don't know what raw_input() does in python, but this will help solve your indexing issue to get you back on track to translating it.

EDIT

(sorry for the delay, took a little while to write this all out) as requested, here's an example of how your process could work:

index.php

<input id="send_request" type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit me!" />
<div id="result"></div>
<script>
var obj_merge = function(a, b, e){
    var c={},d={};
    for(var att in a)c[att]=a[att];
    for(var att in b){if(e&&typeof c[att]==='undefined'){d[att]=b[att];}c[att]=b[att];}
    if(e)c={obj:c,extras:function(){return d;}};
    return c;
};
var serialize_obj = function(data, str){
    if(!str) str = "";
    if(data){
        for(var i in data){
            if(typeof data[i] === 'object') str += serialize_for_post(data[i], str);
            else str += (str.length <= 0) ? i+"="+data[i] : "&"+i+"="+data[i];
        }
    }
    return str;
};
var do_ajax = function(input_config){
    var default_config = {
        url: null,
        req_type: 'GET',
        async: true,
        data: null,
        callback: null
    };
    var config = obj_merge(default_config, input_config);
    if(typeof config.url === 'undefined') return false;

    if(config.data){
        config.data = serialize_obj(config.data);
        if(config.req_type.toUpperCase() === 'GET'){
            config.url = config.url+"?"+config.data
        }
    }

    var xmlhttp;
    if (window.XMLHttpRequest){
        xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); // IE7+, FFx, Chr, Opa, Safi
    } else {
        xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); //IE5 & IE6
    }
    if("withCredentials" in xmlhttp){
        xmlhttp.open(config.req_type,config.url,config.async);
    } else if(typeof XDomainRequest != "undefined"){
        xmlhttp = new XDomainRequest();
        xmlhttp.open(config.req_type,config.url);
    } else {
        xmlhttp = null;
    }
    if(!xmlhttp){
        console.log("CORS Support Missing.");
        return false;
    }
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function(){
        if (xmlhttp.readyState === 4){
            if(typeof config.callback === 'function'){
                config.callback(xmlhttp.responseText, xmlhttp);
            } else {
                console.log(xmlhttp);
            }
        }
    };
    xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("X-Requested-With", "XMLHttpRequest");
    if(config.req_type.toUpperCase() === 'POST'){
        xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
        xmlhttp.send('POST&'+config.data);
    } else {
        xmlhttp.send();
    }
};

document.getElementById('send_request').onclick = function(event){
    var result = prompt("Enter Something");
    do_ajax({
        url: "ajax_page.php",
        data: {"answer": result},
        req_type: "POST",
        callback: function(response){
            var json_data = JSON.parse(response);
            var output = json_data ? "" : response;
            if(output.length === 0 && json_data){
                for(var key in json_data){
                    output += key+": "+json_data[key]+"<br />";
                }
            }
            document.getElementById('result').innerHTML = output;
        }
    });
};
</script>

ajax_page.php

<?php
function F($a){
    return strcmp($a, 'y') == 0 ? 1 : 0;
}
if(!empty($_POST) && array_key_exists('answer', $_POST)){
    $result = F($_POST['answer']);
    /*
     * DO SOMETHING WITH $result
     */
    echo json_encode(array('status' => true, 'result' => $result));
    die;
} else {
    echo json_encode(array('status' => false, 'error' => 'No answer was provided'));
    die;
}
echo json_encode(array('status' => false, 'error' => 'Something went wrong, sorry about that!'));
die;

Answer 2

You can do this with the command line version of php (PHP cli getting input from user and then dumping into variable possible?), but otherwise you need to use form submission (or possibly Ajax).

Answer 3

After reading the comments on your post i think is about: statefull (Python) and stateless (PHP). A website works from request to request and python programms start once and ends once. So you have to do more kompex code logic in php as in python to get the same done.

Hope that helps.