What's wrong here?

lyonsdigital · August 7th, 2003, 02:13 PM

I'm using what should be a very simple script. Anyone got a clue what I've done wrong? I can't get the variable to show when I refresh the page. It's in the url, but the echo statements are blank.

<html>

    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1">
        <meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive 6">
        <title>Scentco: Newscasts</title>
    </head>

    <body bgcolor="#ffffff">

        <br>
        <br>
        Select a clip from the list below. At this time only newsclips featuring Paint Pourri are available for download.
        <br>
        <br>
        <form action="index.php" method="get">
            <select name="station">
                <option value="wtsp">Tampa WTSP</option>
                <option value="kdka">Pittsburg KDKA</option>
                <option value="wtvg">Toledo WTVG</option>
                <option value="wroc">Rochester WROC</option>
            </select>
                <br>
                <br>
            <input type=submit value="Play Newsclip">
        </form>
        <?php
        echo "The variable is: $station";
        echo "<embed src=\"ppouri$station.mov\" type=\"video/quicktime\">";
        ?>
    </body>

</html>

The page is online at: http://www.scentco.net/newscasts

Jonathan Lyons
Lyons Digital Media

Survival Guide to Printing and Graphics at:
http://www.lyonsdigital.com

richard.york · August 7th, 2003, 02:28 PM

You probably have the register_globals directive turned off.

There are several existing posts which address this topic. And the following URL discusses why register_globals is turned off and what to do instead.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/languag...predefined.php

Basically what you need to do is use the $_GET superglobal array (PHP 4.1 or later) OR $HTTP_GET_VARS (PHP prior to 4.1).

So your reference to the $station variable should look like this:

echo "The variable is: {$_GET["station"]}";
echo "<embed src=\"ppouri{$_GET["station"]}.mov\" type=\"video/quicktime\">";

The curly braces tells PHP that the object enclosed in curly braces is a variable and will avoid a parse error from the use of quotes in the array.

This is Nikolai's register_globals FAQ:
http://p2p.wrox.com/archive/beginnin...2002-11/17.asp

Another topic on register_globals:
http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2429

A topic discussing curly brace syntax and strings:
http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2469

hth,
Rich

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Smiling Souls
http://www.smilingsouls.net
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

lyonsdigital · August 7th, 2003, 02:43 PM

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

This client doesn't use my preferred ISP and I've not run into this problem before. What a pain in the... Well, you know.

You've been a lifesaver. If you'd like, check out the clips. They're working now.

Jonathan Lyons
Lyons Digital Media

Survival Guide to Printing and Graphics at:
http://www.lyonsdigital.com