PHP Shorthand for isset form POST value

Question

I am creating a form and am just looking for more efficient ways to do things. What I have so far is:

<p><input type="text" name="transmission" value="" /></p>
<p><input type="text" name="model" value="<?=$model;?>" /></p>

So some of them will have a value already set, and some will be blank. What I want to do is see if the form has been set, and if it has then use $_POST['name'] as the value, if not then use either blank or use the previous variable I have.

<p><input type="text" name="name" value="<?php if isset($_POST['submit'])) { echo $_POST['name']; } else { echo ""; } ?>" /></p>

But there has to be a shorter way to do that.

IF anyone could point me in the direction I would really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Answer 1

You can define variables in beginning of your script before HTML output, for example:

$name = isset($_POST['submit']) ? $_POST['name'] : null;

in your html section you can print $name without worrying it was not defined

<p><input type="text" name="name" value="<?php echo $name ?>" /></p>

Also if $_POST['submit'] does not contain any value you are more likely to receive FALSE statement. To avoid such issues use array_key_exists

Answer 2

Like Nazariy said, you should avoid as much PHP in the template as possible.
In fact, you should have in your template already prepared variables only.

So, in your code have something like this

$FORM = array();
$form_fields = array('name','sex');
foreach($form_fields as $fname) {
  if (isset($_POST[$fname])) {
    $FORM[$fname] = htmlspecialchars($_POST[$fname]);
  } else {
    $FORM[$fname] ='';
  }
}

and then you have smooth and neat template:

<p><input type="text" name="name" value="<?=$FORM['name']?>" /></p>