I'll go over the simple passing of data from form to adding it to the database and the different functions and variables that can be used.

So the Form Mail we're going to make is going to be broken does into 2 parts. One part has the HTML for the form and the second part is the processing for the form. However, we have to work backwards and do the processing before hand. We will ask three things on the form to keep it simple: their name, their e-mail address, and their comments.

The validation of data that has been entered in a form is necessary in most cases. Why is important? For example, what good is holding a contest or sweepstakes if you can't notify the winner, because he or she entered an invalid telephone number or an incorrect address. What good is having a mailing list if the e-mail addresses on it aren't verified, and your mailing list just bounces back to you without reaching the subscribers and target audience.Validating form entries saves you time and more importantly, it can save you money. And since somebody embossed the slogan "Time is money!", this should be very important for your web site!Well when should we validate? There are two types of validation; client side and server side.For reference, client side means that you are depending on what browser the user is currently using. On the client side, validation is performed using JavaScript. And that can be very tricky, because some users turn off JavaScript support in their browsers before they even come to your site. If you encounter of one those users, client side validation won't help you much if you try to verify data from a form because your JavaScript code will not be executed or interpreted by the browser, means you are back to square 1. Remember, the winner of your competition entered a wrong address.This is where server side validation comes in handy. It will always work, no matter what. Of course assuming that you have access to the technology on your server. Server side validation can be done with Perl, PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, JSP and almost any other scripting language. For this tutorial, I'll use PHP. A quite popular and easy to master server side scripting language.

One recent evening the Phanatic and a few friends were splitting an extra large pizza and a few six packs of Jolt. The Phanatic was pontificating as usual about good program design and problem generalization. One of the PHP apostles, probably egged on by a Jolt buzz, challenged the Phanatic to "practice what you preach" and design a program that solved a class of problems rather a single task. Another of the assembled brethren suggested the Phanatic use the NuSphere suite he had been extolling recently. The gauntlet was thrown down.

POST/GET Form Variables