basic php form doesnt work

Question

I am new in PHP and trying to save input to a text file, but POST action does nothing:

<form method="POST" action="<?php $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?>">
Name: <input type="text" name="usersname"/><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Write" name="submitwrite"/>
</form>

and in the same file on the top:

<?php
    // Check if the user submitted this form
if (isset($_POST["submitwrite"])) {
    // Open the file in write mode
    $handle = fopen("writetest.txt","a+"); 

    // If successful
    if ($handle) {
        // Write to that handle the username submitted in the form and the date
        fwrite($handle,$_POST["usersname"] . " - " . date("Y-m-d"));

        // Close the file
        fclose($handle);
    }
}
?>

I click button and it doesnt POST to itself.... how to fix it??

UPDATE: Thank you for your answers.. A problem was with file permissions... server does not allow me to set 777, only 755. There was nothing wrong with this code. I am glad you helped me to spot this !!

Answer 1

What does <?php $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?> <?php $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?> do? It doesn't print anything, so your form doesn't have a place to submit to.

Try using <?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?> <?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?> or <?php print($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]); ?> <?php print($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]); ?> instead.

---

Also, if that won't help, maybe changing fopen("writetest.txt","a+"); to fopen("writetest.txt","w"); might help?

Answer 2

You forgot to echo the action. But it doesn't matter, since you should omit the attribute completely if you want to POST to the same URL.

Answer 3

For me your code works fine, but, I think that you doesn't work because the directory haven't permission for write.

run chmod 0777 diretory_name

Answer 4

I suspect <?php $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?> <?php $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?> isn't doing what you expect it to.

If I recall correctly if you can avoid the problem by removing the action attribute, then the form will default to posting to "itself" (the same URL).

Answer 5

You have to set your permissions to read/write for both User and IUSR on "writetest.txt" if you're testing locally.

Steps to Fix it:

• Right click the file "writetest.txt"
• Go to Properties.
• Click Security.
• Click Edit. Select IUSR and USER
• Check the "Write" box on both users.
• Save the settings.

Answer 6

You are missing an echo in the action php statement. However the form should still post to itself.

Try:

if (isset($_POST)) {
    var_dump($_POST);
}