Displaying the Errors

Introduction & Features

Almost there! The final step is to display the errors to the user. At this juncture, the errors are stored in the $errors PHP variable. So all we need to do is loop through them and display them on the page. Here's some code for that:

<?php
// if $errors is not empty, the form must have failed one or more validation
// tests. Loop through each and display them on the page for the user
if (!empty($errors))
{
  echo "<div class='error'>Please fix the following errors:\n<ul>";
	foreach ($errors as $error)
	echo "<li>$error</li>\n";

	echo "</ul></div>";
}
?>

Now all we do is add thank chunk of code to your form and we're done!

<?php
require_once("path/to/form_tools/global/api/api.php");
$fields = ft_api_init_form_page("X"); // X would be your form ID

// validation time!
$errors = array();
if (isset($_POST['sbmt']))
{
  $rules = array();
  $rules[] = "required,subject,Please select a subject.";
  $rules[] = "required,fullname,Please enter your name.";
  $rules[] = "required,email,Please enter your email address.";
  $rules[] = "valid_email,email,Please enter a valid email address.";
  $rules[] = "required,comments,Please enter your comments.";
  $errors = validate_fields($_POST, $rules);

  // no errors - great! Now we process the page. The ft_api_process_form does
  // the job of both updating the database and redirecting to the next page
  if (empty($errors))
  {
    $params = array(
      "submit_button" => "sbmt",
      "next_page" => "thanks.php",
      "form_data" => $_POST,
      "finalize" => true
    );
    ft_api_process_form($params);
  }

  // it failed validation. Update $fields with the latest contents of the form data
  else
  {
    $fields = array_merge($_SESSION["form_tools_form"], $_POST);
  }
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
	<title>Sample Form</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php
// if $errors is not empty, the form must have failed one or more validation
// tests. Loop through each and display them on the page for the user
if (!empty($errors))
{
  echo "<div class='error'>Please fix the following errors:\n<ul>";
  foreach ($errors as $error)
	echo "<li>$error</li>\n";

  echo "</ul></div>";
}
?>

<form method="post" action="<?=$_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]?>">

Subject: <select name="subject">
	<option value=""
	<?php if (@$fields["subject"] == "") echo "selected"; ?>>Please Select</option>
	<option value="General Comment"
	<?php if (@$fields["subject"] == "General Comment") echo "selected"; ?>>General Comment</option>
	<option value="Bug Report"
	<?php if (@$fields["subject"] == "Bug Report") echo "selected"; ?>>Bug Report</option>
	<option value="Feature Suggestion"
	<?php if (@$fields["subject"] == "Feature Suggestion") echo "selected"; ?>>Feature Suggestion</option>
</select><br />
Name: <input type="text" name="fullname" value="<?=htmlspecialchars(@$fields["fullname"])?>" /><br />
Email: <input type="text" name="email" value="<?=htmlspecialchars(@$fields["email"])?>" /><br />
Comments: <textarea name="comments"><?=@$comments?></textarea>

<input type="submit" name="sbmt" value="Submit Form" />

</form>

</body>
</html>