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PHP for simple HTML-PHP-CSS contact form --- aimed solely for RTL websites
As a non PHP programmer I have tried to program some basic PHP mail() function code to send Right To Left (RTL) contact form messages to my local email client (i.e. an email client which is affiliated with the same web domain of my website hosting machine).
The code does its task; contact form RTL messages indeed reach my local email box and the output is RTLized as expected but I guess I lack some backend validation there and perhaps some other things --- please opine about my PHP code.
contact_form.php
<?php
$topic = $_POST['topic']; # Required;
$name = $_POST['name']; # Required;
$email = $_POST['email']; # Required;
$url = $_POST['url']; # Name attribute is "url" but input type is "text" because "url" obligates http:// or https:// which users normally don't input
$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$date = $_POST['date'];
$time = $_POST['time'];
$notes = $_POST['notes'];
$to = 'example@example.com';
$subject = 'הודעה חדשה מאת: ' . $name;
include 'message.php';
$headers[] = 'MIME-Version: 1.0';
$headers[] = 'Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8';
mail($to, $subject, $message, implode("\r\n", $headers));
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') {
header('Location: $contact_form_success_webpage');
exit;
}
?>
message.php
<?php
$message = <<<LABEL
<html>
<head>
<style>
* {
font-size: 20px;
}
a {
unicode-bidi: plaintext !important;
}
.form_output_col_1 {
font-weight: bold;
}
</style>
</head>
<body dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;">
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">נושא: </span><span class="form_output_col_2">$topic</span></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">שם: </span><span class="form_output_col_2">$name</span></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">אימייל: </span><a dir="ltr" href="mailto:$email" class="form_output_col_2">$email</a></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">אתר: </span><a dir="ltr" href="$url" target="_blank" class="form_output_col_2">$url</a></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">טלפון: </span><a dir="ltr" href="tel:$phone" class="form_output_col_2">$phone</a></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">תאריך: </span><span class="form_output_col_2">$date</span></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">שעה: </span><span class="form_output_col_2">$time</span></div>
<div><span class="form_output_col_1">הערות: </span><span class="form_output_col_2">$notes</span></div>
</body>
</html>
LABEL;
?>
1 answer
general improvements
Move everything that is directly related for the submission inside the if ... 'POST' condition.
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') {
$to = 'example@example.com';
$subject = 'הודעה חדשה מאת: ' . $name;
include 'message.php';
$headers[] = 'MIME-Version: 1.0';
$headers[] = 'Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8';
mail($to, $subject, $message, implode("\r\n", $headers));
header('Location: $contact_form_success_webpage');
exit;
}
there is no benefit of running all this code without submission of the form. Setting the other variables is useful if you use them in the form to keep the values on failed validation, otherwise you could move them also inside the condition.
validation
You should make sure the required fields are actually enforced.
$errors = [];
for ($required_field in ['topic', 'name', 'email']) {
if (array_key_exists($required_field, $_POST)) {
if (empty($_POST[$required_field])) {
$errors[] = "$required_field cannot be empty";
}
}
}
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST' && count($errors) == 0) {
// ...
}
Then, beside your form you can output those error messages:
if (count($errors) > 0) {
echo "<p><b>Error validating your field:</b><br>";
echo implode("<br>", $errors);
echo "</p>";
}
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