HTML Form POST data shows as blank when submitted

Question

I have a small form, once submitted the post data gets set to variables which are then used in a email message, when the email is sent, the post data is blank, when I try to echo out the POST data it is also blank. I am not sure why, here is the code.

   <?php if(!isset($_POST['submit'])): ?>
<form name="contactForm" method="POST" id="contactForm">
<table>
    <tr>
        <td><input name="name" id="name" class="fields" type="text" placeholder="name"></td>            
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><input name="email" class="fields" type="email" placeholder="email"></td>            
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><input name="phone" class="fields" type="phone" placeholder="phone(optional)"></td>            
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td><textarea name="message" class="fieldsMessage" name="message" placeholder="Message"></textarea><?php $ermes; if(!empty($ermes)){echo "<br>".$ermes;}?></td>            
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td><input class="submitButton" type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">     
    </td>
    </tr>

 </table>
 </form>
 <?php else: ?>
<h2 style="padding-bottom: 80px; margin-bottom: 0px; text-align: center;" class="title">Your Message Was Sent</h2>
   <?php
    if(isset($_POST['submit'])){
        if(empty($_POST['name'])){
            echo "<script type=text/javascript>alert('PLEASE ENTER YOUR NAME');</script>";
        } //end name if
        elseif(empty ($_POST['email'])){
            echo "<script type=text/javascript>alert('PLEASE ENTER YOUR EMAIL');</script>";
        }//end else if email
        elseif(empty($_POST['message']))
        {
      echo "<script type=text/javascript>alert('Please enter a message');</script>";

        }// End elseif message
    }//End isset submit if
    else
    {
        $name=$_POST['name'];
        $email=$_POST['email'];
        $message=$_POST['message'];
        if(isset($_POST['phone']))
        {
         $phone=$_POST['phone'];   
        }// isset phone
        else
        {
            $phone="";
        }
        $to="sample@live.com";
        $subject="New Contact Form Email";
        $message="Name: ".$_POST['name'];
        $headers='From: Trip Galapagos Forms';
        mail($to, $subject, $message); 


    }//End else

?>
 <?php endif;?>

Answer 1

Where is the action in your form?

The action attribute specifies where to send the form-data when a form is submitted.

Please refer html form tag for more information http://www.freecontactform.com/html_form.php#htmlform

Also check here and HTML_forms_-_the_basics

Answer 2

You miss to close the if statement endif; in end of code.

If you didn't specify the action in form . Data will be posted in same location.

Answer 3

The action for form is missing. When you are posting data to the same page you have to use action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>" or action="" in the form tag.

Change

<form name="contactForm" method="POST" id="contactForm">

to

<form name="contactForm" method="post" action="" id="contactForm">