PHP 500 Error on $Post Any errors in my code?

Question

I'm still learning code. I'm in college and have entered everything like my professor to the tee. His code is running through to his DB, but mine is throwing a PHP 500 error.

I don't think that it is a code error, but I was hoping another set of eyes or someone with more experience code see an issue I'm not able to spot. I have tried changes to some of my variables and both the form and the PHP connection commands.

<head>
    <title>Post Your Content</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheet.css" />
</head>

<body>
        <div class="header">
            <h1>Create Content for the Database!</h1>
            <p><i>If only the library of Alexandria was backed up to the cloud...</i></p>
        </div>

        <div class="topnav">
            <a href="homePage.php">Home Page</a>
            <a href="createContent.php">Create Content</a>
            <a href="#">Link</a>
            <a href="#" style="float:right">Link</a>
        </div>

        <form name="postcontent" method="post" action="InserttoDB.php"> 
            <p>Author:
            <input type="text" name="Author" id="Author"></p>
            <p>Title:
            <input type="text" name="Title" id="Title"></p>
            <p>Topics:
            <input type="text" name="Tags" id="Tags"></p>
            <p>Content:
            <input type="text" name="Content" id="Content"></p>
            <input type="submit">
        </form>

        <div class="footer">
            <h2>I made this for school!</h2>
        </div>
</body>

    <?php

//Catch information
//Render data
//Connect to database
//Insert data into database

$Author = htmlspecialchars($_POST['Author']); //grab value
echo "DEBUG - Author is" . $Author;
$Title = htmlspecialchars($_POST['Title']); //grab value
echo "DEBUG - Title is" . $Title;
$Tags = htmlspecialchars($_POST['Tags']); //grab value
echo "DEBUG - Tags are" . $Tags;
$Content = htmlspecialchars($_POST['Content']); //grab value
echo "DEBUG - Content is" . $Content;

//Database

$servername = "localhost:8889";
$username = "root";
$password = "root";
$dbname = "cms system";

$mysqli = new mysqli(
    $db_host,
    $db_user,
    $db_password,
    $db_db,
);


//create connection
$connection = new mysqli ($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

//check connection
if($connection->connect_error) {
    die("Connection Failed: " . $connection->connect_error)
}

//INSERT INTO `content` (`PostID`, `Author:`, `Title:`, `Tags:`, `Content:`) VALUES ('test', 'test', 'test', 'test');

$sql = "INSERT INTO content(Author, Title, Tags, Content) VALUES ('$Author', '$Title', '$Tags', '$Content')";

//Run SQL

if(mysqli_query($connection, $sql)) {
    echo "New Post Created!";
}

//Error MSG

else {
    echo "Error: " . $sql . "" . mysqli_error($connection);
}

//Close DB Connection

$connection->close();    
?>

This is a screen shot of my database and the table for more information. Php is 7.4.1 and I am using MAMP. I am using visual studio to write. The browser is chrome.

php database screenshot

try turning on [error reporting](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1053424/how-do-i-get-php-errors-to-display) — Sumit Wadhwa, Dec 21 '20 at 04:26
**Warning:** You are wide open to [SQL Injections](https://php.net/manual/en/security.database.sql-injection.php) and should use parameterized **prepared statements** instead of manually building your queries. They are provided by [PDO](https://php.net/manual/pdo.prepared-statements.php) or by [MySQLi](https://php.net/manual/mysqli.quickstart.prepared-statements.php). Never trust any kind of input! Even when your queries are executed only by trusted users, [you are still in risk of corrupting your data](http://bobby-tables.com/). [Escaping is not enough!](https://stackoverflow.com/q/5741187) — Dharman, Dec 21 '20 at 15:15
You have a typo here `die("Connection Failed: " . $connection->connect_error)` but please delete all of it and change your professor/course. You should never be learning to write code like that. — Dharman, Dec 21 '20 at 15:17
Here is how you can enable error reporting to see the error for yourself. [How to get the error message in MySQLi?](https://stackoverflow.com/a/22662582/1839439) You should also use proper IDE that will highlight the wrong line of code and point you to the error — Dharman, Dec 21 '20 at 15:21

score 2 · Answer 1 · 2020-12-21T05:07:02.947

Change that professor as soon as you can.

Change your db connection settings:

$servername = "localhost:8889";
$username = "root";
$password = "root";
$dbname = "cms system";

$mysqli = new mysqli(
    $db_host,
    $db_user,
    $db_password,
    $db_db,
);


//create connection
$connection = new mysqli ($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

To :

$servername = '127.0.0.1'; 
$port = 3306; //Your port can be 3306 or 3307 or 3308
$username = 'root';
$password = 'root';
$dbname = 'test'; //no space between db name like yours 'cms system'
$charset = 'utf8mb4';

mysqli_report(MYSQLI_REPORT_ERROR | MYSQLI_REPORT_STRICT);
try {
    $connection = new mysqli($servername , $username , $password , $dbname , $port);
    $connection ->set_charset($charset);
} catch (\mysqli_sql_exception $e) {
     throw new \mysqli_sql_exception($e->getMessage(), $e->getCode());
}
unset($servername , $dbname , $username , $password , $charset);

Check your database name shouldnt have spaces in between. 'cmssystem'

PHP 500 Error on $Post Any errors in my code?

1 Answers1