Hi guys, completely new to PHP here and I am stuck somewhere and would appreciate some advice.

I have a couple of radio buttons which has an onclick feature to them. Within each of these radio buttons there are sub-dropdown boxes. What I want to do is when I click on the radio option and then subsequently choose an option from the drop down box, I need the values of the drop down boxes as well within the email that will be sent out. At the moment, all I get is the radio button value passed into my email (probably because that's all I am calling at the moment). I have no idea on how to get the values of the drop down boxes in conjuction with the radio button values.

At the moment all I get within my email is this:

Server Specs : Virtual Machine (if I choose the Virtual Machine radio option)

Attached is a snipet of the code that I am using.

<label class="description" for="machine">Machine Type </label>
        
        <span>
            <input id="Virtual Machine" name="machine" class="element radio" type="radio" value="Virtual Machine" onclick="showstuff('vmdiv'); hidestuff('physdiv');"/>
            <label class="choice" for="Virtual Machine" >Virtual Machine</label>
        
        <div id="vmdiv" style="display:none">
        <font color="#4C787E">    
        <br>Operating System:<br>
            <select name="Virtual Machine">
            <option value="none">None</option>    
            <option value="Windows Server 2003">Windows Server 2003</option>
            <option value="Windows Server 2008">Windows Server 2008</option>
            </select>
        <br>

        <br>Storage Pool:<br>
            <select name="Virtual Machine">
            <option value="cpenas">CPE NAS (standard data pool)</option>    
            <option value="pool2">pool2</option>
            <option value="pool3">pool3</option>
            </select><br>    
        </font>    
        </div>
        
            <input id="Physical Machine" name="machine" class="element radio" type="radio" value="Physical Machine" onclick="showstuff('physdiv'); hidestuff('vmdiv');"/>
            <label class="choice" for="Physical Machine">Physical Machine</label>
        
        <div id="physdiv" style="display:none">
        <font color="#4C787E">            
        <br><b>Physical Machine</b>
            <input type="text">
            </font>
        </div>
        </span> 

and the php for the email that I am using is

PHP Code:

<?php
//error_reporting (E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);
$errors = '';
$machine = '';

if(isset($_POST['submit']))
{
$machine = $_POST['machine'];
}

if( empty($errors))
{
    $email_subject = "New Server Order Form submission\n";
    $email_body = "You have received a NEW SERVER ORDER.\n";
    $email_body .= "\n Server Specs:" .$machine;
    $to = "abc@somemail.com";      

    mail($to, $email_subject, $email_body);

    header('Location: New form thank you.html');
}

So my basic requirement is to get something like this in my email if I choose Virtual machine and its sub options

Server Specs : Virtual Machine Windows Server 2003 pool2


Thanks for the help. I did a brief search through the site but I did not know what exactly to look for.

http://www.tizag.com/phpT/examples/formex.php is a good basic grounding for form processing.

Remove spaces from your field names, by the way.

Thanks Paul but that link doesnt really help my query much.

It appears you have javascript controlling the form data, so its hard to tell what is going on. Looking at your raw html form structure, it appears to be wrong syntax.

Originally Posted by mgraphic

It appears you have javascript controlling the form data, so its hard to tell what is going on. Looking at your raw html form structure, it appears to be wrong syntax.

The only bit of JScripting I am using is for the hidestuff and showstuff which is this

    function showstuff(divid){
        document.getElementById(divid).style.display="block";
    }

    function hidestuff(divid){
        document.getElementById(divid).style.display="none";
    }

Also I dont know if the syntax is right or wrong but I am am getting it to work except for the drop-down boxes within the radio button feature.

The error is in the drop down names. First off, they should not have spaces, seconds, both drop downs can't have the same name. Here is a simple example, with all the extras stripped off:

<input name="machine" type="radio" value="VM" />Virtual Machine
        
Operating System:
<select name="VM_OS">
   <option value="none">None</option>    
   <option value="Windows Server 2003">Windows Server 2003</option>
   <option value="Windows Server 2008">Windows Server 2008</option>
</select>

Storage Pool:
<select name="VM_SP">
   <option value="cpenas">CPE NAS (standard data pool)</option>    
   <option value="pool2">pool2</option>
   <option value="pool3">pool3</option>
</select>


<input name="machine" type="radio" value="PM" />Physical Machine

Operating System:
<select name="PM_OS">
   <option value="none">None</option>    
   <option value="Windows Server 2003">Windows Server 2003</option>
   <option value="Windows Server 2008">Windows Server 2008</option>
</select>

Storage Pool:
<select name="PM_SP">
   <option value="cpenas">CPE NAS (standard data pool)</option>    
   <option value="pool2">pool2</option>
   <option value="pool3">pool3</option>
</select>

And then select them in this manner

PHP Code:

if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
   $machine = $_POST['machine'];
   if ($machine == 'VM') {
      $op = $_POST['VM_OS'];
      $sp = $_POST['VM_SP'];
   } elseif ($machine == 'PM') {
      $op = $_POST['PM_OS'];
      $sp = $_POST['PM_SP'];
   }
} 


Of course you can choose which ever names you want (without spaces), I just used VM, PS, OS and SP because it was less for me to write

Lizciz, you might want to edit your post and change VM_OP and PM_OP to VM_OS and PM_OS

Thanks for noticing Keith, it has been corrected

Thanks mate, I had something worked out exactly similar. I have another doubt if you dont mind me asking.

Say for example;

<input id="Physical Machine" name="machine" class="element radio" type="radio" value="Physical_Machine" onclick="showstuff('physdiv');"/>

<label class="choice" for="Physical_Machine">Physical Machine</label>
        
<div id="physdiv" style="display:none">
<br><b>Physical Machine</b>
<input type="text">
</font>
 </div>

I have a radio button called "Physical_Machine", that on click shows a text box where you would manually type the physical machine's name. Now similarly to what you helped out with on top, I would like to get the values that were filled into this text box.

Thanks a lot champ.

Just use a text field instead.

<input type="text" name="machine_name" />

And retreive the value in the same manner as before

PHP Code:

$machine_name = $_POST['machine_name']; 


Just to clarify, in case it still isn't clear, all form input fields (text, radio, button, textarea etc.) uses the name attribute to identify themself. And no matter what type of input it is, if you specify a name you can always retreive it's value from the $_POST array using it's name, as in $_POST['field_name'].

Originally Posted by lizciz

Just to clarify, in case it still isn't clear, all form input fields (text, radio, button, textarea etc.) uses the name attribute to identify themself. And no matter what type of input it is, if you specify a name you can always retreive it's value from the $_POST array using it's name, as in $_POST['field_name'].

You my friend are a legend. It was so simple. Thanks a lot.