PHP & MySQL® Web Development All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

Chapter 1. Building and Processing Dynamic Forms

In This Chapter

• Using HTML forms with PHP

• Getting data from an HTML form

• Displaying data in a form

• Processing what users type into HTML forms

• Building the code for a real form

A dynamic Web site is one in which the visitor interacts with the Web site. The Web site visitor provides information to the Web site in an HTML form, and the Web site performs actions based on the visitor's information. The Web site might display different Web pages based on the user's information or might store or use the information.

In this chapter, we don't tell you about the HTML required to display a form. We assume that you already know HTML. (If you don't know HTML or need a refresher, check out HTML 4 For Dummies, 5th Edition, by Ed Tittel and Mary Burmeister, from Wiley Publishing.) What we do tell you is how to use PHP to display HTML forms and to process the information that users type into the form.