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#1 2008-08-10 05:35:43

Bionic Apple
Member
Registered: 2008-08-05
Posts: 59

PHP blanks-out with certain files

I have been following the tutorial at Zend, which is excellent, but some scripts seem to spit out blank pages while others work fine.  I configured a LAMP server on my desktop using the LAMP Wiki entry here,  while the test file from the wiki worked fine.  Also, I am running these scripts from /home/me/public_html/.  I don't know if they are just bad scripts or what, but here are the ones that work:

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Test Page</title>
</head>

<body>
This is Arch Linux, running PHP.

<?php
  phpinfo();
?>
</p>
</body>
</html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Please work!</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php echo "I better see this text..."; ?>

</body>
</html>

While these do not work:

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Cat</title>
</head>
<body>

<!-- Unfinished! -->

<?php

if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) {
?>

<form action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="POST">
Number of files to read: <input type="text" name="number">
</form>

<?php

}
else {

$file_num = $_POST['number'];

echo "<form action=\"<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>\" method="POST">";

for ($int, $int <= $file_num, $int++) {
    echo "File $int: <input type=\"text\" name=\"file$int\">";
}

echo "</form>";

?>

</body>
</html>
<html>
<head></head>
<body>

<?php
/* if the "submit" variable does not exist, the form has not been submitted - display initial page */
if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) {
?>

    <form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
    Enter your age: <input name="age" size="2">
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go">
    </form>

<?php
    }
else {
/* if the "submit" variable exists, the form has been submitted - look for and process form data */
    // display result
    $age = $_POST['age'];
    if ($age >= 21) {
        echo 'Come on in, we have alcohol and music awaiting you!';
        }
    else {
        echo 'You're too young for this club, come back when you're a little older';
    }
}
?>

</body>
</html>

Last edited by Bionic Apple (2008-08-10 05:36:16)

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#2 2008-08-10 14:29:12

Top_se
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2008-08-03
Posts: 31

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

Hello!

Your problems are the quotes. PHP can differenciate between " and '. And, hm, it`s just hard to explain. Eg:
echo "Hello 'guy'";
would result in: Hello 'guy'
whereby
echo "Hello "guy"";
would just result in a php-parser-error -> so a blank page.
You can output PHP variables inside echo e.g. in this way:
echo "Hello guy", $number,", I really like you!";
But I think a good tutorial-writer can explain this much much better ...

So, just change your first problemematic php-file into:

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Cat</title>
</head>
<body>

<!-- Unfinished! -->

<?php

if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) {
?>

<form action="<?= $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="POST">
Number of files to read: <input type="text" name="number">
</form>

<?php

}
else {

$file_num = $_POST['number'];

echo "<form action='", $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], "' method='POST'>";

for ($int, $int <= $file_num, $int++) {
    echo "File ",$int,": <input type='text' name='file",$int,"'>";
}

echo "</form>";

?>

</body>
</html>

Well and in your second line it`s at least this line:

Bionic Apple wrote:
    else {
        echo 'You're too young for this club, come back when you're a little older';
    }

The php parser would expect to output: "You" and then there would be php-code with this syntax:
re too young for this club, ....
And this stuff is just unreadable for the php-parser ...

so change this line it:

    else {
        echo "You're too young for this club, come back when you're a little older";
    }

Try to understand the php-system for quotes and you will be rid ob at least these errors ...

And I`m not too sure whether I found all errors, because I havn`t got a php-parser at hand now and my solution is just one out of countless ones ... but I know for certain that it`s not an arch-issue at all ;-)

So, good luck with learning php smile

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#3 2008-08-10 14:45:15

orion
Member
From: near Hamburg / Germany
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 19

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

for ($int, $int <= $file_num, $int++) {
    echo "File ",$int,": <input type='text' name='file",$int,"'>";
}

little offtopic: this isn't clean code at all. please do so:

for ($file_count = 1, $file_count <= $file_num, $file_count++) {
    echo 'File ' . $int . ': <input type="text" name="file'. $int . '" />';
}

uhm, and "," is no connector at all, use "." @top_se

and <input> has to be "omitted" to get valid with W3C Standards wink

for HTML quotes, use ", and for PHP strings use '. But mention that non-printable characters like \n must be quotet with ".

Edit: Althoug, for coding, PHP errormessages should be displayed, to check if its turned on check your php.ini config file.

Last edited by orion (2008-08-10 14:49:15)

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#4 2008-08-10 20:53:55

Bionic Apple
Member
Registered: 2008-08-05
Posts: 59

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

Unfortunately, I won't have access to my Arch desktop for 4 more hours, but there is one thing I would like to point out.  The fourth example, where it asks for your age, came straight from the tutorial site.  Back when I used Ubuntu, that code worked with no problems.  Also, thanks for the tip orion.  However, last time I checked double quotes around a string lets you input PHP variables, rendering it unnecessary to have multiple strings.  Regarding the error messages, I attempted to change it after I saw blank pages, but I didn't know exactly what to change.  I did change an option in php.ini that sounded like it was the one, but the faulty scripts kept on outputting blank pages.

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#5 2008-08-11 02:38:13

Bionic Apple
Member
Registered: 2008-08-05
Posts: 59

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

Alright, I finally found the elusive "Display Errors" option and then googled each error that I found.  So, just for reference, here is the unfinished-but-working PHP script:

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP cat</title>
</head>
<body>

<!-- Unfinished! -->

<?php

if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) {

?>

<form action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="POST">
Number of files to read: <input type="text" name="number">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

<?php

}
else {

 $file_count = $_POST['number'];

 echo '<form action="<?php $_SERVER[\'PHP_SELF\']; ?>" method="POST">';

 for ($file_num = 1; $file_num <= $file_count; $file_num++) {
    echo "File $file_num: <input type='text' name='file$file_num'>";
 }
}

echo "</form>";

?>

</body>
</html>

Last edited by Bionic Apple (2008-08-11 02:42:12)

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#6 2008-08-11 03:43:09

Bionic Apple
Member
Registered: 2008-08-05
Posts: 59

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

Even though the thread topic has been solved, I would like to see if someone knows why this script always gives a Object Not Found error when a file location is submitted.

<html>
<head>
<title>PHP cat</title>
</head>
<body>

<!-- Sort of finished -->

<?php

if (!isset($_POST['submit1'])) {

?>

<form action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="POST">
Number of files to read: <input type="text" name="number">
<input type="submit" name="submit1" value="Submit">
</form>

<?php
}

elseif (isset($_POST['submit1']) && !isset($_POST['submit2'])) {

 $file_count = $_POST['number'];

 echo '<form action="<?php $_SERVER[\'PHP_SELF\']; ?>" method="POST">';

 for ($file_num = 1; $file_num <= $file_count; $file_num++) {
    echo "\nFile $file_num: <input type='text' name='file$file_num'> <br />";
 }


echo "\n<input type='submit' name='submit2' value='Submit'>\n</form>";

}
else {

 echo "\n<table>";

 for ($file_num = 0; isset($_POST["file$file_num"]); $file_num++) {

    echo "\n<tr>\n<td>";

    // set file to read
    $file = $_POST["file$file_num"] or die('Could not open file!');
    // open file
    $fh = fopen($file, 'r') or die('Could not open file!');
    // read file contents
    $data = fread($fh, filesize($file)) or die('Could not read file!');
    // close file
    fclose($fh);
    // print file contents
    echo "\n$data";

    echo "\n</td>\n</tr>";
 }

 echo "\n</table>";

}

?>

</body>
</html>

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#7 2008-08-15 05:45:54

Bionic Apple
Member
Registered: 2008-08-05
Posts: 59

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

No one?  It seems as though all scripts involving file-opening are returning Object Not Found errors from the Apache server.

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#8 2008-08-15 22:43:07

Leiaz
Member
Registered: 2007-09-06
Posts: 7

Re: PHP blanks-out with certain files

This line is wrong :

 echo '<form action="<?php $_SERVER[\'PHP_SELF\']; ?>" method="POST">';

Look at the source code of the generated web page and the url on the page that says "Object not found". The apache server can't find the file named <?php $_SERVER[\'PHP_SELF\']; ?>
You want the value of $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] in the generated page, and not <?php $_SERVER[\'PHP_SELF\']; ?> : the generated page won't be processed by php again. (not sure if i'm explaining this well ...)
What you want is :

echo '<form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST">';

There are other errors. After you hit submit2, $_POST['submit1'] is not set so your "if" block will be executed again.
In your "elseif" block the "for" loop starts at 1 and in your "else" block the "for" loop starts at 0 : $_POST['file0'] is never set, so the loop is never executed.

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