PHP form tutorials?

[NewComputer]

I am looking for a nice, easy tutorial to create a form that once submitted would be stored as an email. I have always had someone else make mine, but I think it is time I learn. Is there a nice tutorial out there that explains it piece by piece?

[Weirfire]

What do you mean when you say stored as an email? Do you mean that the data entered into the form would be sent as an email?

[THT]

take a look on webmonkey - theres loads on there!

[NewComputer]

What do you mean when you say stored as an email? Do you mean that the data entered into the form would be sent as an email?

Ultimately I would like to have the info dumped into a mysql database, but email would be fine (or a .csv or another format).

[Weirfire]

So you want the info dumped into a mysql database in email format?

[noppid]

http://www.awtrey.com/tutorials/dbeweb/

Maybe that has some help.

[NewComputer]

So you want the info dumped into a mysql database in email format?

Weir,

Not really sure... I have only ever had the forms come in to me via email (as my previous creator of forms had setup). This will be used for real estate and we would like the data to be as manageable as possible (eg. easily converted to as many formats as necessary). Mostly for newsletters and home updates etc...

[Weirfire]

Weir,

Not really sure... I have only ever had the forms come in to me via email (as my previous creator of forms had setup). This will be used for real estate and we would like the data to be as manageable as possible (eg. easily converted to as many formats as necessary). Mostly for newsletters and home updates etc...
So you want to build some kind of content management system?

[rickbkis]

One (the most versatile) option is to store the form data in fields in the database, then extract to XML on query. From there you can use XSLT to transform the info into whatever format you want.

Non-trivial for a newbie. Read lots. Order lots of pizzas.

The other option, of course, is to extract directly and output to custom translators. Not as versatile, since you have to write your own translators for each type of output you want. And you can't take advantage of outputs already supported by XSLT.

But, you'll understand the code, better, because you wrote it. Whether anybody else will, is up for grabs. Remember, maintenance is part of coding. Do small test cases and prototypes as much as possible before tackling the real problem.
Else, you'll likely wind up with an unmaintainable mess.


rickb

[rickbkis]

Hmm. As I think about it, XSLT might not get you e-mail output. I'd have to check the docs, but it'll get you things like Word, Acrobat, HTML, XHTML, etc.

Suggest you approach the problem in three stages:

Create the form and get the data into the database.
Create an extractor to get the data. (I'd still extract into XML - there are good tools to access the data from there, and it can be fed to other pieces, easily, like XSLT.)
Output the data how you want it.


You should find reasonable tutorials on each of these steps.

Good luck.
rickb