problems with php in a string assigned to a php variable

Question

I'm writing my first php page for class. The page is supposed to take input from a form and output it. At first I tried to using the $content variable below to store a block of html which would output either the form or the ouput. I was putting this inside the id="content" div depending on whether or not the form elements were set. Anyway, I moved away from this because I wasn't able to use the _SERVER['PHP_SELF'] varialbe correctly. I'm abandoning this for now, but am now running into a similar problem. Here' my code so far:

<?php

if (!empty($_POST['first-name']) && !empty($_POST['last-name']) 
    && !empty($_POST['age']))
{
    $fname = $_POST['first-name'];
    $lname = $_POST['last-name'];
    $age = $_POST['age'];

    $content = '<h1>About You</h1>
        <h4>First Name:</h4>
        <p><?php echo $fname; ?></p>
        <h4>Last Name:</h4>
        <p><?php echo $lname; ?></p>
        <h4>Age:</h4>
        <p><?php echo $age; ?></p>';
}
else
{
    $content = '';  
}

//get the first name, last name and age from the form


?>

<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Personal Info Results</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"/>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="content">
        <h1>My Form</h1>
        <form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
            <div id="person-info">
                <label>First Name:</label>
                <input type="text" name="first-name"/><br/>
                <label>Last Name:</label>
                <input type="text" name="last-name"/><br/>
                <label>Age:</label>
                <input type="text" name="age"/><br/>
            </div>
            <div id="submit"><input type="submit" value="Submit Info"/></div>
        </form>
    </div>
    <div id="output">
        <?php echo $content; ?>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

The problem right now is the fact that the echo function inside the $content variable isn't causing the output to appear. Instead I'm getting blank lines. Am I defining it incorrectly inside of the String assignment?

legiero · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-25 05:43:02Z

5

$content = '<h1>About You</h1>
    <h4>First Name:</h4>
    <p><?php echo $fname; ?></p>
    <h4>Last Name:</h4>
    <p><?php echo $lname; ?></p>
    <h4>Age:</h4>
    <p><?php echo $age; ?></p>';

Should be

$content = '<h1>About You</h1>
    <h4>First Name:</h4>
    <p>'.$fname.'</p>
    <h4>Last Name:</h4>
    <p>'.$lname.'</p>
    <h4>Age:</h4>
    <p>'.$age.'</p>';

ECHO is not function and return nothing. Also you use <?php ?> construction inside PHP code. In this moment <h1>About You</h1> is not HTML, just string.

answered Oct 25, 2011 at 5:43

legiero

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1 Comment

webhound Over a year ago

I was thinking of it differently. I thought that once the string rendered as HTML the PHP would become active, but this makes sense. Thank you.

Mike Aski · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-11 16:02:20Z

0

Use like this.

$content = '<h1>About You</h1> <h4>First Name:</h4> <p>' . $fname 
    .'</p> <h4>Last Name:</h4> <p>' . $lname
    .'</p> <h4>>Age:</h4> <p>'. $age
    .'</p>';

edited Sep 11, 2012 at 16:02

Mike Aski

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answered Oct 25, 2011 at 5:46

Nick

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