Filled form is passing empty string on server (but works OK on localhost)

Beginners - Learning PHP
#1

I am trying to implement a simple CAPTCHA on my web site.

It works as I intend on localhost (Apache server on my laptop), but $_POST[‘human’] appears to reach test.php as an empty string (MD5=d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e) when I upload the same files to my web server.

The CAPTCHA image is of a random number; the number is stored as an MD5 string for comparison as $_SESSION[‘randomnum’]. This bit seems to work properly, and test.php picks up this number (and, hence, MD5 string) correctly.

Any ideas? (This has flummoxed me for a day and a half! :D) I have double-checked that files on the web server are latest versions and are in the correct directories.

The form HTML:

[code]

  



[/code]

test.php:
[php]

<?php session_start(); if (md5($_POST['human']) == $_SESSION['randomnum']) { echo '; } else { echo '; } ?>

[/php]

#2

there is a quote missing off the end of both your echo’s

</script>;

Should be

</script>';

try putting at the top
[php]echo $_POST[‘human’];[/php]

Or try

[php] if( isset($_POST[‘human’])){
echo ‘human is set’;
}else{
echo ‘human not set’;
}[/php]

#3

Thanks for your reply

Oops! For (intended) simplicity for posting here, I removed a option before posting here and inadvertently deleted the terminating quotes; sorry.

</script>;

Should be

</script>';
try putting at the top [php]echo $_POST['human'];[/php]

I have used:
[php]echo $_POST[‘human’];
echo “
”;
echo md5($_POST[‘human’]);
echo “

”;
echo $_SESSION[‘randomnr’];
echo “
”;
echo $_SESSION[‘randomnum’];[/php]

randomnr is the number generated for the image:
[php]$randomnr = rand(10000, 99999);
$_SESSION[‘randomnum’] = md5($randomnr);[/php]

Confirms that the form passes human correctly when testing on localhost my laptop, but not when it is uploaded to the web server, where it passes an empty string.

#4

(Apologies for mangling the quoting above: there doesn’t seem to be a modify/edit option to allow me to correct it)

#5

try adding value to the text input

<input type="text" size="20" name="human" value="" />

#6

Thanks for the suggestion, but it has made no difference. Even if I give a default value, e.g.:

<input type="text" size="20" name="human" value="enter numbers here" />

the default is passed to the test.php file on localhost, but on my webserver it still passes a blank string.

#7

Something is stopping the post being sent to the php
Do you use die() or exit() in your script ?

Have you tried adding another input and echoing it out seems strange to not be posting the form value?

#8

Bingo! Cracked it at last: initialised $-SESSION variables in test.php

[php]<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION[‘ishuman’]= md5($_POST[‘human’]);
$_SESSION[‘randomnum’]= md5($_SESSION[‘randomnr’]);

if ($_SESSION['ishuman'] == $_SESSION['randomnum'])	{ echo

(etc)
[/php]

Not sure why I need to do that on the web server, but not on localhost, but hey…

Much appreciation for your efforts, Noodles!

Now, how do I mark this as [SOLVED]…?

#9

I was not sure what you had in your session, did dumping the session vars help ?

I marked it as solved.

#10

Didn’t get around to trying the dump: your post came through as I was testing what turned out to be the solution.

I marked it as solved.
So did I! :D

Thanks again for your time & help.

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