Getting Submitted Post values in Drupal 7

Question

I'm having problems accessing the posted values after a form submission with Drupal 7.

Say I have a simple form with one text field and a submit button.

function sample_form($form, &$form_state){
  $form['sample']['name'] = array(
  '#description' => 'Name',
  '#value' => 'Name',
  '#type' => 'textfield',
  );
 $form['sample']['sample_submit'] = array(
   '#type' => 'submit',
   '#value' => 'SUBMIT',
   '#submit' => array('sample_form_submit')
 );
}

and then my submit handler, which is meant to display the value the user entered in the textfield.

function sample_form_submit($form, &$form_state){
  drupal_set_message($form_state['values']['name']);
}

However, the message always contains the default value for the textfield, in this case 'name'. If I enter "Mike" and hit submit, the message displays "name" (the default value).

How can I get at the submitted values? I know I can access with

$form_state['input']['name']

but my understanding is that the above gives me the raw, unsanitized $_POST data.

I need the user entered value, how can I get this? I'm really unclear about the process of getting user submitted data using the drupal forms API.

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

It's because you're using #value instead of #default_value for the text field. Using the former will always overwrite the value provided by the user. You just need to change your code to this:

function sample_form($form, &$form_state){
  $form['sample']['name'] = array(
    '#description' => 'Name',
    '#default_value' => 'Name', // <-- Change made here
    '#type' => 'textfield',
  );

  $form['sample']['sample_submit'] = array(
    '#type' => 'submit',
    '#value' => 'SUBMIT',
    '#submit' => array('sample_form_submit')
  );
}

This is only true for elements that actually take in an inputted value. For example, #value is still the correct key to use for hidden inputs, submit buttons etc. Select lists, checkboxes, etc. will also need to use #default_value or you'll never get the user submitted data.

Check out the Drupal FAPI for reference in case you haven't seen it.