Error retaining form field values on a html form

Question

I am trying to retain the values on a form field (title) when a form is submitted. I want the values to remain on the form field even when an error message is displayed but this is not working. It returns a blank space. What is the problem here?

<?php
$err = array(
    '01' => "Your Ad was submitted!",
    '02' => "Your Ad was not submitted, try again",
    '03' => "Image format not supported",
    '04' => "Only letters and numbers are allowed",
    '05' => "Only letters and numbers are allowed"

 );
 $err_code = isset($_GET['err']) ? $_GET['err'] : null;
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {

    $param = array(
        'title' => $_POST['title'],
        'category' => $_POST['category'],
        'school' => $_POST['school'],
        'description' => $_POST['description'],
        'price' => $_POST['price'],
        'date' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
        'member' => $_SESSION['id']
    );

    $sql = "INSERT INTO ads
            (title, category, school, description, price, member_id, date)
             VALUES
            (:title, :category, :school, :description, :price,  :member_id, :date)";


        if ($db->query($sql, $param)) {
        $ad_id = $db ->getLastInsertId();
            header ("Location: submit_ad.php?err=01");
    }
        else{
            header ("Location: submit_ad.php?err=02");
        }    
?>
     <form action="" class="" role="form" id="idea" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
                            <?php    
                            echo ('01' == $err_code) ? "<span class='error'>{$err['01']}</span>" : '';
                    echo ('02' == $err_code) ? "<span class='error'>{$err['02']}</span>" : '';
                            echo ('03' == $err_code) ? "<span class='error'>{$err['03']}</span>" : '';
                            ?>


                                <div class='form-group'>
                                    <label for="title">Title*</label>
                                     <input type="text" class="form-control form-3x" id="title" name="title" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['title']) ? $_POST['title'] : '' ?>" >
                                    <p class='help-block'>Add a short title to describe your Ad</p>
                                </div>
                                <div class='form-group'>
                                    <label for="desc">Description*</label>
                                    <textarea name="description" class="form-control form-3x" id="desc"></textarea>
                                    <p class='help-block'>Describe your ad</p>
                                </div>
         <div class='form-group'>
                                    <input type="submit" value="Post" name="submit" class="btn btn-success" />
                                </div>
                            </form>

Answer 1

You have input twice, and you are using name attribute twice.

<input type="text" class="form-control form-3x" id="title" name="title" <input type="text" name="myField1" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['title']) ? $_POST['title'] : '' ?>" >

The correct syntax would be:

<input type="text" class="form-control form-3x" id="title" name="title" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['title']) ? $_POST['title'] : '' ?>" >

name of input has to be "title" for your php code to work

Answer 2

Browsers usually clear a form of input when a new page is requested. Since you do a header ("Location: submit_ad.php?err=01"); it clears out the field and you've lost the $_POST data.

What you can do in this case is to store the post data in a session and echo it in a value attribute of the input element.

<input type="text" name="fname" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['post.fname']; ?>">

Answer 3

title input your looks like this

<input type="text" class="form-control form-3x" id="title" name="title" <input type="text" name="myField1" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['title']) ? $_POST['title'] : '' ?>" >
                                                             issue here ^                        to here ^

should be:

<input type="text" class="form-control form-3x" id="title" name="title" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['title']) ? $_POST['title'] : '' ?>" >