Form validation problem

[gokeeffe]

What I want to do is the following

I have a form with 8 fields,all of these fields are optional

but if one of the fields is filled in ie. the email address field

I want to validate the email address.

Hence I use this code


// Check for a email address
if (eregi ("^[[:alnum:]][a-z0-9_.-]*@[a-z0-9.-]+\.[a-z]{2,4}$",stripslashes(trim($_POST['email_address']))))
{
$e = escape_data($_POST['email_address']);
}
else
{
$e = FALSE;
echo '<p class = "validation">Please enter a valid email address</p>';
}


But what do I do if it is not filled in I don't want this code to happen so I do the following


if (isset($_POST['email_address']))

{

// Check for a email address
if (eregi ("^[[:alnum:]][a-z0-9_.-]*@[a-z0-9.-]+\.[a-z]{2,4}$",stripslashes(trim($_POST['email_address']))))
{
$e = escape_data($_POST['email_address']);
}
else
{
$e = FALSE;
echo '<p class = "validation">Please enter a valid email address</p>';
}

}
else

{

carry on as normal


}

but this doesn't work it keeps going into the vaidation code even if it is empty

I have also used


if (strlen($_POST['email_address']) > 0)

{

etc, etc

but that doen't work either

Please help

Regards

Graham

 

[vbkris]

try this:
POST['email_address']!=""

instead of using isset (if there is a textfield in the previous page it will return atleast an empty value. therefore isset will always be true!!!)

Known is handfull, Unknown is worldfull

 

[gokeeffe]

I tryed this but it still doesn't work

if ($_POST['email_address']!="")
{
// email has been entered
// validate email address

if (eregi ("^[[:alnum:]][a-z0-9_.-]*@[a-z0-9.-]+\.[a-z]{2,4}$",stripslashes(trim($_POST['email_address']))))
{
$e = escape_data($_POST['email_address']);
}
else
{
$e = FALSE;
echo '<p class = "validation">Please enter a valid email address</p>';
}
}

is there something wrong with my input box

<tr>
<td colspan="2" class="labelcell"><label for = "additional_number">Email Address:</label></td>
<td colspan="2" class="fieldcell2"><input type="text" name="email_address" size="30" maxlength="30"
value="<?php if(isset($_POST['email_address'])) echo stripslashes ($_POST['email_address']);?>"/>
</td>
</tr>

 

[vbkris]

try this:
echo($_POST['email_address']);

Known is handfull, Unknown is worldfull

 

[DRJ478]

Another note:
I would recommend to use the PCRE regular expression functions rather than POSIX. preg_match() would be my choice.