I've coded c++, asm, and linux for near 3 years now, but recently I've created a website and have been pretty much teaching myself html, css, and php. I've been using templates, and finding snippets of code and modifying them to work with everything i need. What I'd like is a template to do the following

Create a small drop box, I'll add in my options to it
Create one "short form" and throw on a submit button. I can kind of figure this out, but what I really want help with is when someone hits the submit button, it redirects to my site's home page, and saves their input to a file that will be on my ftp server. Could anyone help me piece together how to save this to a file?

you have to use fwrite
www.php.net/fwrite
Example from php.net

PHP Code:

<?php
$filename = 'test.txt';
$somecontent = "Add this to the file\n";

// Let's make sure the file exists and is writable first.
if (is_writable($filename)) {

    // In our example we're opening $filename in append mode.
    // The file pointer is at the bottom of the file hence
    // that's where $somecontent will go when we fwrite() it.
    if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'a')) {
         echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
         exit;
    }

    // Write $somecontent to our opened file.
    if (fwrite($handle, $somecontent) === FALSE) {
        echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
        exit;
    }

    echo "Success, wrote ($somecontent) to file ($filename)";

    fclose($handle);

} else {
    echo "The file $filename is not writable";
}
?>

edit // see fopen for opening mode. Here it's for adding. You can create one file for each answer, or better, create a file per day - like if(!is_file('my_'.date('Y-M-d').'.txt')) [MAKE NEW FILE] else [JUST ADD TO THIS]

OR Better... use a database

So on this template I found, and I have a similar form already on my website that redirects to e-mail, again I piece together templates, but I'm having trouble piecing this one. How can I edit this to record just the drop box option and whatever they typed in the little box? I would like to just append to a .txt file.

<!--Start Where...? Form -->

	<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="http://www.threadsoftime.com/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi" name"where">

		<input type=hidden name="recipient" value="info@threadsoftime.com">

		<input type=hidden name="redirect" value="http://www.threadsoftime.com/Merchant2/info/where_popup.shtml?success">

		<input type=hidden name="subject" value="How did you hear about us?">

		<input type=hidden name="email" value="info@threadsoftime.com">

		<input type=hidden name="realname" value="User at:Threads of Time">

	<table>

		<tr valign="top">

			<td colspan="2">

			<select name="How did you hear about us?"> 

				<option selected>Choose One...</option>

				<option value="friend">Friend</option>

				<option value="link">Link</option>

				<option value="web">Web Search</option>

				<option value="ad">Magazine Ad</option>

				<option value="show">Show</option>

				<option value="shop">Shop</option>

				<option value="webring">Webring</option>

				<option value="other">Other</option>

			</select>

			</selected>

		</tr>

		<tr>

			<td><font face="Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Please Specify:</font></td>

		</tr>

		<tr>

			<td><input type=text name="Please Specify" size="22"></td>

		</tr>

		<tr>

			<td><font face="Arial,Helvetica" size="-2">(Such as Google, Renaissance Magazine, Web Link Site Name, etc...)</td>

		</tr>

	</table>

	<!--End Email Link copy & Contact Form -->



<!-- End Where...? Form -->

									</td>

								</tr>

							</table>

						</td></tr>

					</table>

			<!-- End Table Box -->

			<font size="-2"><br></font>

<div align="center">



<input type="Image" name="Submit" src="http://www.threadsoftime.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/Button-Submit.gif" alt="Submit">

</form>

man, don't EDIT this, just make your own...
This form is not valid and it's not what you need

<form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="somewritescript.php">
	<p><textarea cols="70" rows="10" name="myfield" id="myfield"></textarea></p>
	<p><input type="submit" name="go4it" id="go4it" value="make submit" /></p>
</form>

and in your somewritescript.php file, make the thing

PHP Code:

<?php
if(!isset($_POST['myfield'])) exit;
$filename = 'test.txt';
$somecontent = $_POST['myfield'];

    if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'a')) {
         echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
         exit;
    }

    if (fwrite($handle, $somecontent) === FALSE) {
        echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
        exit;
    }

    @fclose($handle);
    echo "Success, wrote";
    
    /*
    // OR make a redirect back
    header('Location: your-redirect-link.php');
    */
} else {
    echo "The file $filename is not writable";
}
?>

Ok I think I'm getting it. Is there a way to store two entries? One from a drop down and one from the short form? So how would i take in two arguments to write?


Also, there's a syntax error on line 23 of your .php, I'm not sure what it is?

Oh, sorry my mind was slipping for a minute, I could just do

PHP Code:

    if (fwrite($handle, $somecontent) === FALSE) {
        echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
        exit;
}
    if (fwrite($handle, $someothercontent) === FALSE) {
        echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
        exit;
} 


couldn't i?

yep
or, you can also do

PHP Code:

 if (fwrite($handle, $somecontent."\n\n".$someothercontent) === FALSE) {
        echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
        exit;
} 


Oh sweet, ok, that's cool.

Can you tell me whats wrong with your line 23? Still complaining about your syntax and I can't debug php for crap xD

Actually, I got the short menu working, the only thing I need now is what variable do i set someothercontent to? I'm using this,

<select name="mydropdown">
<option>Choose One...</option>
<option>Friend</option>
<option>Business Card</option>
<option>Google Search</option>
<option>Google Ads</option>
<option>Yelp</option>
<option>Yahoo! Business</option>
<option>Other (Please Specify)</option>
</select>

and want to be able to store their selection as well.

I figured everything out, working perfectly for me! Also, apparently to add a newline in a .txt you need "\r\n" I Appreciate all your help and left you some Talkupation. Lemme know if you have a tip jar :P If you wanna see it in action, my website is www.sqntech.com

Thanks again!
~Kyle

\n it's OK for a text file
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline

\r = CR
and, yes... it's more ok to have both

Yes, I know what \n is lol, again, I've been coding c++ for near 3 years, just websites are totally new to me. I tried it multiple times with \n and it would just butt the words up next to each other, I looked it up and remembered having to use \r\n in certain instances :P But I'm happy that everything works, so thank you for the help!