Check if form is submitted

Question

I am making a calendar web app and when I click on a date a form pops up. If I use $_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST" or isset($_POST['submit']) to check whether the form is submitted or not, the echo code executes even when I refresh the page and don't click on submit. How can I make sure that the form data is retrieved only when I submit the form?

<form method="post" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);?>"> Event Title:<br> <input type="text" name="eventTitle" id="eventTitle" maxlength="15" size="20" placeholder="Code.fun.do" required><br><br> Event Description:<br> <textarea name="eventDescription" rows="5" cols="50"></textarea><br><br> From:<br> <input type="time" name="eventTimeFrom"><br><br> To:<br> <input type="time" name="eventTimeTo"><br><br> <input id="eventSave" type="submit" name="submit" value="Save"> </form> <?php $eventTitle = $eventDescription = $eventTimeFrom = $eventTimeTo = ""; //if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") { if(isset($_POST['submit'])) { echo "<h2>something</h2>"; $eventTitle = test_input($_POST["eventTitle"]); $eventDescription = test_input($_POST["eventDescription"]); $eventTimeFrom = test_input($_POST["eventTimeFrom"]); $eventTimeTo = test_input($_POST["eventTimeTo"]); } function test_input($data) { $data = trim($data); $data = stripslashes($data); $data = htmlspecialchars($data); return $data; } ?>

@MasivuyeCokile I am using javascript to get form data and display it in the calendar. — Utkarsh Barsaiyan
– Utkarsh Barsaiyan, Commented Mar 17, 2017 at 10:24
Your question title says something else, and your body something else, can u explain clearly what u want? — Masivuye Cokile
– Masivuye Cokile, Commented Mar 17, 2017 at 10:25
When you are testing the form, are you refreshing the page? This could be re-sending the POST request. — John Reid
– John Reid, Commented Mar 17, 2017 at 10:31

John Reid · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-17 10:44:20Z

When you submit the form. A POST request is sent to the server.

You can avoid this by redirecting the page once you have completed the work that your script is doing with this:

header("Location: http://mypage.php"); die();

Now, the problem here is that you lose echoing data data, so you could add something to give a success message:

header("Location: http://mypage.php?success=true"); die();

Now, in your script you could have this where the output would go:

<?php if ( isset( $_GET['success'] && $_GET['success'] == 'true' ) ) { echo 'Your form has been submitted!'; }

This should avoid the trouble that you're having. There are other techniques though and you should use one that's right for you.

On a side note, POST requests are also resubmitted when you use forward and back buttons in your browser - you should be mindful of this, too.

Other techniques include using sessions and / or unique URLs - but I don't want to get into that in this specific answer.

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