How do I include a PHP file that handles the action for a custom form of mine?

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I would like to port over a form I created for my site and insert it into C5 somehow so that I can use it.

Only trouble is that I can't for the life of me figure out how to indicate the action of the form as a PHP script I have been using.

I don't mean how form actions are indicated in normal, easily understood HTML form constructs.

I mean inside C5.

For example what in the world does the following code do respecting the action of the form?

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" id="miniSurveyView<?php echo intval($bID)?>" class="miniSurveyView" method="post" action="<?php  echo $this->action('submit_form').'#'.$survey->questionSetId?>">


That's like gibberish to me or nearly so.

I mean I know the "<form enctype="multipart/form-data" id="miniSurveyView<?php echo" part. That's easy.

But what is intval($bID)? Some kind of ID obviously but to what? And what is the purpose of this ID? Is it a CSS ID?

Why the use of intval()?

What does "$this->action('submit_form').'#'.$survey->questionSetId?>"
mean?

Is 'submit_form' some sort of stock action? What does survey have to do with a form? Why are we attaching some sort of # to the action of the form?

And most importantly how in the world do I insert my own action in the form of a PHP file that I want to have the form run every time the form is submitted?

I've been sitting here for the better part of an hour staring at my computer and I still haven't got a clue.

If anyone might be willing to help me through this action confusion I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks.

Carlos

 
jordanlev replied on at Permalink Best Answer Reply
jordanlev
You can't attach your own processing to the form block. You want to use the "external_form" block instead (or you could create a single_page, but that's probably not the best solution for your situation here).

$bID is the block ID. It is often appended to HTML id's to ensure that elements on the page have unique id's (in case there is more than 1 of a block added to a page -- if they were both "miniSurveyView", you wouldn't know which is which -- whereas if one is "miniSurveyView78" and the other is "miniSurveyView79", now you can uniquely identify each one).

The intval ensures that it is a number. It's totally unnecessary in this case, I'm not sure why it's there. But in other situations you use it to make sure you're getting an integer number instead of a string or a "float" (number with decimal places) -- sometimes useful if trying to validate the value of a form field or of a querystring parameter ($_GET['...']) because you can't trust that users will always enter the kind of data your code expects. But again, since the $bID comes from the C5 system in this case, I'm not sure why it's there -- probably just a habit of whoever coded it up originally.

$this->action('submit_form') is how you get the url to a specific function in your controller (a function other than "view()", which is the default if you don't specify an action). You need to look at the form block's controller.php file to see what this is about -- there is a function in there called action_submit_form which handles form submissions. I don't know what the #surveyQuestionSetId thing is for (probably left over from some experiment at one time but never taken out).

A really helpful technique for figuring out what various templates are doing is to view the source of the page in the browser. Then you would see what it is that is actually getting outputted by all the various php variables (like $bID and $this->action()).

Hope that helps.

-Jordan
carlos123 replied on at Permalink Reply
Hmm...well, if I can't attach my own processing to the form block I guess that block is out then. Still don't know what the form block does as far as processing is concerned but it's really not necessary that I know at this point (I submitted a Form...well...form, and it said Thanks!...though I am not sure for what LOL).

Anyway I will work with the external block then and do what you suggest Jordan. Namely look at the source and put a bunch of echo's in the relevant code to see which pieces of the final page output come from where.

I don't know what else to say other than thanks again Jordan!

Carlos