Web Form Processing

- how to make a web form work

The most important component of a web form is never seen. We only see what it does. It is the form processing code that delivers the form inputs. Without the processing code all you have is a displayed form with no means to deliver the input data.

The processing code is commonly provided by a web host as a cgi (common gateway interface) script. This is is simply a file including processing code that is called by your web form when a submit button is clicked.

Common Form Processing Scripts

The most common of these cgi scripts is formmail which was developed using the perl programming language. Many web hosts include this cgi script on their servers and you may be able to use it free of charge. Alternatively if you have the capacity to run perl scripts on your site you could install and run it yourself. You can access it from Matt's Script Archive.

Using this approach you basically tell the form to run the script when a submit button is clicked. The form action value (set in the form) identifies the file to run. The greatest benefit of formmail is that it is free. However it has some limitations (some of which are being addressed with new formmail releases).

Formmail limitations:

All processing data must be included in the form. This includes the delivery email address. Anybody or anything can read this data by simply viewing the source code of the form page. If you right click forms using formmail and view the source code you will see the delivery email address. The fact that a human can see it is not really a problem but the fact that an automated email address harvesting robot script can see it is.

The displayed form and the processing component are two separate files. The formmail script can be called by any web page not just your form.

The script is generic with limited features and data delivery capacity.

Setting up and using perl based codes like formmail can be painful. Editing and modifying perl scripts is not easy. It is a very strict language and not user friendly.

A Better Form Processing Script?

Possibly a better method of form processing can be seen in the Form1 approach (this view is not entirely impartial as the author of this article and the Form1 developer are the same). Form1 includes the displayed form and the processing code in a single file so the form is a complete package. The form delivery email address is included in the processing code not the form code. This is only processed on the server and can never be seen or exposed by humans or email harvesters. On form submission all it does is call itself and if certain criteria are met it will process submission data, if not it will simply display the form web page. Form1 utilizes the php scripting language and includes an extensive range of features that can be easily incorporated. It can also process the data from any form. As long as your web form code is valid all that is required is to add the Form1 php processing code to the top of the web page code.

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