EDIT: have fixed my own problem. sorry.

Hello

I would like to know how to pass on a variable after a person submits a form, so that I can use a "switch" command in the page.

For example, what I do with my webpages is have each URL called <a href="index.php?load=contactme"> or <a href="index.php?load=homepage"> and the index.php page has a switch command saying to get the load variable and then to include a specific bit of text.

This works perfectly for all URLs.

However, I want to do exactly the same thing when someone fills in a form and presses "submit", but I can't figure out what to do.

I have my form:

PHP Code:

<form action="index.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="test_text" length="30">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit!">
</form> 


and when the person presses submit want it to go to the index.php page and load a certain include. For example, one saying "Thanks for submitting."

In there anyway to pass a variable on the URL after pressing submit? For example, using a hidden field in the form? I tried index.php?load=thanks, but I don't remember it working.

Thanks in advance for you help.

Hamish

EDIT: for some reason action="index.php?load=thanks" is now working. Sorry to have bothered anyone.

Well, just use what you did before. Put "index.php?load=value" as the "action" in your form.

On index.php, retrieve the load variable using $_GET['load'], and then just use your switch like you intended.

A better way is to use the location() function. If there turns out to be a security problem with $_GET and $_POST vars in the future then you would open yourself up to an attack by including a page in that fashion.

There's a location function? What's that do? Never heard of it!

But I doubt you'll run into a security problem by passing an action variable in the query string. It's not like he was passing a password or anything ...

Oops I got messed up, what I meant was the header function. It is used like this...

header("Location: page.php");

Sending a get or post request to include a page is not inherently dangerous but it could be with sloppy coding or even simple mistakes. For instance someone could change what you intended from say page1.html to securepage.html. Possibly bypassing security measures.

It really depends on the person doing the coding and what kind of security measures are put into place. I have always just seen including pages by post or get variables as not the best programming practices. Ofcourse, best programming practices is always up for debate as everyone seems to have their own way to do things.