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That’s done with a super-magic variable called $_POST.
Try it! Let’s use my favorite debugging tool var_dump on this variable:
<?php var_dump($_POST); ?>
Fill out the form again and submit. It prints out an associative array. Each key is from the name attribute of the field and its value is what we typed in!
Wait, not so fast! Where did this variable come from? We already learned that if we try to reference a variable name that doesn’t exist, PHP gets really angry and tells us about it:
<?php var_dump($_POST); ?>
<?php var_dump($fakeVariable); ?>
Like when we try this, we do get a big warning.
Here’s the secret: $_POST is one of just a few variables called “superglobals”. That’s nothing more than a heroic way of saying that $_POST is always magically available and equal to any submitted form data.
The other superglobals include $_GET, $_SERVER and a few others. We’ll talk about them later, but they all have one thing in common, besides their love of capital letters. Each super-global gives you information about the HTTP request our browser sent.
Eventually, we’re doing going to save this new pet somewhere, like a database. We’ll get there, but for now, let’s set each value to a variable and dump them to prove it’s working. I’ll do this right at the top of the page, because that’s a nice place to put your PHP logic:
<?php
$name = $_POST['name'];
$breed = $_POST['breed'];
$weight = $_POST['weight'];
$bio = $_POST['bio'];
var_dump($name, $breed, $weight, $bio);die;
?>
<?php require 'layout/header.php'; ?>
This time, refresh your browser. This actually re-submits our form with the same data we entered a second ago. And there it is!
I took advantage of a cool thing about the var_dump function: it accepts an unlimited number of arguments. Most functions accept 0, 1, 2 or more arguments. That’s normal. But a few brave guys accept an unlimited number. var_dump is one of those brave functions, and it’s documentation shows us that.
Click the top nav link to go to the homepage, and then click “Post” to come back to this form. Oh no, we’re blowing up! When we clicked the link, our browser sent a simple GET request to the server. We didn’t submit a form to get here, so $_POST is an empty array. This means our keys don’t exist, and PHP is giving us a lot of ugly warnings about it!
Let’s fix those warnings first. Any time you reference a key on an array, you gotta ask yourself: Is it possible that this key might ever not exist? It’s better to plan for these cases then let your site have big errors later. Always think about how your code could break and code so that it doesn’t.
Right now, this means we need to add some if statements to see if the array keys exist, starting with the name:
<?php
if (array_key_exists('name', $_POST)) {
$name = $_POST['name'];
} else {
$name = 'A dog without a name';
}
We can shorten this slighty by using isset. It’s just like array_key_exists, but shorter and a bit easier to read:
<?php
if (isset($_POST['name'])) {
$name = $_POST['name'];
} else {
$name = 'A dog without a name';
}
Repeat this for all of the fields:
if (isset($_POST['breed'])) {
$breed = $_POST['breed'];
} else {
$breed = '';
}
if (isset($_POST['weight'])) {
$weight = $_POST['weight'];
} else {
$weight = '';
}
if (isset($_POST['bio'])) {
$bio = $_POST['bio'];
} else {
$bio = '';
}
var_dump($name, $breed, $weight, $bio);die;
Refresh! Ok, warnings are all gone. But we still need to be smarter. When we make a normal GET request, I don’t want to bother looking for any form data, I just want to render the HTML form. I really only want to run all of this logic when the browser sends a POST request, meaning we actually just submitted the form.
So how can we find out if our code is handling a GET request or a POST request?
If you’re thinking the answer is in one of those superglobal variables, you nailed it! This time, it’s $_SERVER. Let’s dump it out to see what it looks like:
var_dump($_SERVER);die;
Woh! It’s an associative array, and it has a ton of stuff in it, 25 things in my case. What is this stuff? Well, it’s information about the HTTP request that was just sent. See the HTTP_USER_AGENT key? That comes from a piece of information our browser included in the request.
No, you don’t need to memorize this, or really remember any of it. Occasionally you’ll need some information, like the user agent. And when you google for how to get that in PHP, this will be your answer.
See that REQUEST_METHOD key? Ah ha! That’s the HTTP method, which is GET right now.
Let’s wrap all of our form-processing logic in an if statement that checks to see if the REQUEST_METHOD key is equal to POST:
Refresh! Our browser makes a normal GET request. All that form processing stuff is skipped and we got our normal, beautiful HTML form. And when we fill out the form and submit, our browser sends a POST request. Now our code kicks into action and dumps out all that data. We’re not doing anything with our form data yet, but our workflow is looking good!
Hey Diogo,
We're sorry about that! Unfortunately, we experienced some problems with challenges yesterday. Today everything should work, please, try again! If you still have any problems - let us know!
Cheers!
Getting some errors on the challenge stage for this episode. I am sure I am entering code correctly. #HELP
Fred! We just re-worked all the challenges, they're way more awesome now, and you can see the answer if you need to. It's totally possible that there was a grading bug before - if so, sorry about that! Try the new challenges - I think you'll like them :).
Hi I use Ubuntu, is there a way I can get var_dump() to print out my variables data in that pretty way you guys show in this videos?
Hey Elvism,
Yes, of course! What you need is the Xdebug PHP extension. For Ubuntu, use your APT package manager to install it:
apt-get install php5-xdebug
It depends on PHP version you use. If you use different PHP version of 5.x - google for how to install Xdebug for your version.
Cheers!
Hi Victor, thanks for responding, so I've installed xdebug for my PHP 7 version following this article https://php-built.com/insta... but I'm still not getting the variables and objects output like you guys get with var_dump() in the videos.
I'm getting still just the same all together in one line like:
array(1) { ["starfighter"]=> object(Ship)#1 (4) { ["name"]=> string(16) "Jedi Starfighter" ["weaponPower"]=> int(5) ["jediFactor"]=> int(15) ["strength"]=> int(30) } }
Checking if I have xdebug installed and enabled properly with php -m | grep -i xdebug it outputs me that the modules everything is correct.
elvismdev@elvismdev-XPS-13-9350:~$ php -m | grep -i xdebug
xdebug
Xdebug
Is there some else settings I would need to tweak or something else I'm missing to get the colored var_dump() with everything lined down as you guys show in the videos?
Hey Elvism,
Hm, it should work. Do you use PHP build-in server? Or real web server like Apache / Nginx? Anyways, you need to restart your server. BTW, take into account that console PHP could use different configuration file (/path-to-php/cli/php.ini) than PHP-FPM (/path-to-php/fpm/php.ini). So if you enable Xdebug only for CLI - do the same for PHP-FPM. Let me know if it helps.
One more thing - look at the Symfony VarDumper Component. It's cool library which dump your variables even cooler than Xdebug. And you even don't need Xdebug for it at all! It provides with Symfony SE out of the box, just use "dump()" function in your PHP code. Or just install it with Composer for your custom project. I'm wondering to hear your feedback about it. :)
Cheers!
Hey Beniamin,
Thanks for sharing this tip! But I'd recommend you to try Symfony VarDumper Component, you would love it ;)
Cheers!
Hello Victor,
VarDumper is the best ever. Thanks. If someone need to install xdebug before symfony I found this ressource very useful: https://xdebug.org/wizard.php
Nice Coding to all of you.
Hey Ryan, There are several more of the challenges that part or all of the text is mission in the Mission box. #2 on this video #2 on the If statements video in the first course. I'll let you know if I find more.
Thanks Neal - I'm going to have us fix this immediately, or at least audit them all. I appreciate the head's up!
Hey! Great course! But I'm having a problem checking my answers on the challenges... When I press "check" the challenge shows loading and nothing happens...