POST command (PHP) refuses to concatenate

Question

So I'm trying to design a website that will allow the user to input data to design a tower. When it comes to the dimensions of basic parts of the tower (the height, width, and depth), I want to present them in a H x W x D format (i.e. 3 x 2 x 2). Trouble is, I'm having problems with concatenation in the PHP file for the second page of the website where everything's displayed.

Here's what my code looks like so far:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Results for tower design</title>
</head>
<body>
    Pillar base shape: <?php echo $_POST["tBase"]; ?><br>
    Pillar dimensions: <?php echo ($_POST["tHeight"];)." x ".($_POST["tWidth"];)." x ".($_POST["tDepth"];) ?><br>
</body>
</html>

It's highly possible that I might be making a common beginner error. If so, I want to know where I went wrong and how to avoid it.

From the manual http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.instruction-separation.php *"As in C or Perl, PHP requires instructions to be **terminated** with a semicolon at the end of each statement. The closing tag of a block of PHP code automatically implies a semicolon; you do not need to have a semicolon terminating the last line of a PHP block. The closing tag for the block will include the immediately trailing newline if one is present."* — Funk Forty Niner, Aug 04 '16 at 14:50
...and running this, would have thrown you `Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ';' in...` but you failed to either check for errors or posted that error. — Funk Forty Niner, Aug 04 '16 at 14:54

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

2

You have some extra semicolons in improper places. A semicolon indicates the end of a PHP statement. You should not use them in the middle of building a string.

($_POST["tHeight"];)

Remove them and make sure you sanitize your output (or you'll be open to XSS attacks)

htmlspecialchars($_POST["tHeight"])." x ".htmlspecialchars($_POST["tWidth"])." x ".htmlspecialchars($_POST["tDepth"])

Running this, would have thrown you: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ';' in...

Use error reporting during testing.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.error-reporting.php

Plus, make sure your POST arrays contain values and that your form uses a post method with matching named attributes.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Community

1
1

answered Aug 04 '16 at 14:46

Machavity

30,841
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and you know what they say about semicolons *eh?* ;-) edit: ah, you did. My bad. – Funk Forty Niner Aug 04 '16 at 14:49
The ink to manual about that: http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.instruction-separation.php – Funk Forty Niner Aug 04 '16 at 14:52
@Fred-ii- Good stuff – Machavity Aug 04 '16 at 14:53
I hope you don't mind the edit. You can rollback if you want ;-) – Funk Forty Niner Aug 04 '16 at 14:57
OK, everything suggested here only prints out the two X's. (That means everyone's answers, not just yours). I'm still not getting the tHeight, etc. variables printed out. Could I be doing something else wrong? – Kendra Dehnert Aug 04 '16 at 20:43
Try a `var_dump($_POST);` and make sure that variable is set. Could have a typo in the field name – Machavity Aug 04 '16 at 20:50

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 04 '16 at 14:48

Fun fact, you can have it all showed as a single line:

Pillar dimensions: <?php echo "{$_POST["tHeight"]} x {$_POST["tWidth"]} x {$_POST["tDepth"]}"; ?>

Every echo that is wrapped with double quotes can have variable been echoed just wrapping with {}.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 04 '16 at 14:52

0

Remove semicolumns

<?php echo ($_POST["tHeight"] ." x ".$_POST["tWidth"] ." x ".$_POST["tDepth"]); ?>

answered Aug 04 '16 at 14:52

ubm

636
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POST command (PHP) refuses to concatenate

3 Answers3