losing form data

i am validating form data, but when i redirect the user back to the
form page to correct the errors, all of the data they entered has
disappeared.

Please Help.

Thanks

digihoo wrote:
> i am validating form data, but when i redirect the user back to the
> form page to correct the errors, all of the data they entered has
> disappeared.

The browser only displays what you send.
If you want to send the same data a user submitted, you have to save it
between the form processing script and the script that outputs that
form. I'd do that with session variables:

<?php // form processing script
session_start();
if (isset($_POST['userdata']) {
validate_data($_POST); // define according to your needs
$_SESSION['userdata'] = $_POST['userdata'];
}
header('Location: form_output.php');
exit('Redirected <a href="form_output.php">here</a>.');
?>

and

<?php // form output script
session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION['userdata']) {
$useradata = $_SESSION['userdata'];
} else {
$userdata = ''; // or some other default value
}
?>
<form method="post" action="form_process.php">
<input type="text" name="userdata" value="<?php echo $userdata; ?>" />
<input type="submit">
</form>



Happy Coding :-)

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i should have been more specific here. the form also loses its data if
the user just clicks the back button - without actually submitting the
data.

when they click forward to the form again, the data is also gone.

i was told that this is caused by a bug in IE 6, and to put:

header("Cache-control: private");

in the code before any HTML. however, this didn't solve the problem.

is there a way to prevent form data from disappearing, whether or not
it has been submitted into post variables?

Thanks