For those of you out there who are really new to PHP:
Are you tired of running the data from the forms you create through another page for processing? Well then this is the blog for. Welcome to the Hello world of advanced form processing!
Despite the "advanced", it's actually quite simple.
For starters, let's create a simple HTML form:


<form name="form1" method="post" action="">
<input type="textbox" name="message">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send">
</form>


Now, there are a few things to pay attention to in the above script. Firstly, look at the 'action=''". Normally, that's where you'd put the name of the file you're running the data through, however leaving it blank (or using $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']) will allow us to run it on the current page, provided we account for it. The next two things to pay attention to are the 'name="message" and the 'name="submit". The first is the name of the input from the text box which we will use in a sec. The second is the name of the submit button, which too is about to be used.
Up next comes the PHP coding to utilize the form from within the same page:


<?php
if($_POST['submit]){

Explanation:
$_POST is the method used to to submit the data, which we specified in the form, and ['submit'] is the name of the input button which we also specified. After that, we contain what we wish to do within the { } brackets.

Ex:


<?php
if($_POST['submit]){
$message=$_POST['message'];

Explanation:
Here, I assigned the value of what was submitted to a variable called $message.
However, accepting uncleaned information submitted by users is a big no-no. They will SQL inject the crap outta you if you let 'em. So, let's revise that previous bit o' code:

<?php
if($_POST['submit]){
$message=mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['message']);


Here we use the mysql_real_escape_string() function to prevent any unwanted database altering by users.
For the sake of ease (well, for me typing this anyway ), I'll use the names of the database tables I use over on DSiRealms. They're contained in ``
Now, let's insert that data into a database:
:

<?php
//insert database connection info here

if($_POST['submit]){
$message=mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['message']);

mysql_query("INSERT INTO `shoutbox` (message) VALUE('$message')");
}
?>

In this portion, we use the mysql_query function to insert the submitted data into the database shoutbox. We insert the data into the database table row called "message" with the value of whatever is contained in the $message variable, which is what the user submitted.

I hope this helps those PHP newbies out there! These are just simple explanations and examples which can be expanded upon.

Leave me some feedback in the comments, as well as if you want me to cover a topic at your request.

---

The only way to be sure that something will fail is to not try.