247AppsStudio Blog

Back in the old day when I first know how to program in php, I always used if-else statement. Sometimes, it gets so long that I couldn’t even keep track of how many if or else, and where the else supposed to be closed. I have no idea. It’s like a jungle of if else in my file. Since I started using switch() function, my codes are much cleaner when I need multiple conditions applied on one variable. I love it. If you only have 1 condition, it’s not worth using this function.

This was my if-else statements before I used switch function:

You will see how switch function can save you a lot of typing and it looks much cleaner on you page.

I have a habit of writing open and close php tag when I start my php codes. If you don’t need the <?php tag, you can just ignore it.

You wonder how data of each field on a form can be refilled after you submit a page. This post will show you how to build an array of sessions that capture the input data of a user after they submit a form.

If an anonymous arrive on your web form from the street, there’s no session until they enter some values and hit Submit button to process the form.

First, you have to have a form to collect data on your website. When customer submit the form, you loop through all the $_POST variables. To make it easy, you should build an array of all field names, so you can build SESSION names using foreach loop.

 'First Name',
   'lastname' => 'Last Name',
   'companyname' => 'Company Name',
   'address' => 'Address',
   'address2' => ' Address2',
   'city' => 'City',
   'state' => 'State',
   'zip' => 'Zip/Postal Code',
   'phone' => 'Phone',
   'ext' => 'Phone Ext',
   'fax' => 'FAX',
   'email' => 'EMail Address',);

   foreach ( $fields as $name => $value ) {
      $_SESSION[$name] = $_POST[$name];
   }
?>

Then if for any reason the form can’t be processed and customer is forced to go back to the form, all data on the form is still there. You can destroy the session anytime after the form is processed successfully. Just use the codes below to reset all SESSION variables.