PHP Form - Validate Email and URL
In this section, we will introduce how to validate names, e-mails, and URLs.
PHP - Validate Name
The following code will check if the name field contains only letters and spaces in a simple way. If the name field value is not valid, it will output an error message:
$name = test_input($_POST["name"]);
if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/",$name)) {
$nameErr = "Only letters and white space allowed";
}
| | preg_match — Perform a regular expression match. <br> <br>Syntax: <br> int preg_match ( string $pattern , string $subject [, array $matches [, int $flags ]] ) <br>Searches subject for a match to the regular expression given in pattern. If matches is provided, then it is filled with the results of search. $matches[0] will contain the text that matched the full pattern, $matches[1] will contain the text that matched the first captured parenthesized subpattern, and so on. | | --- | --- |
PHP - Validate Email
The following code will check if the e-mail address is valid in a simple way. If the e-mail address is not valid, it will output an error message:
$email = test_input($_POST["email"]);
if (!preg_match("/([\w\-]+\@[\w\-]+\.[\w\-]+)/",$email)) {
$emailErr = "Invalid email format";
}
PHP - Validate URL
The following code will check if the URL address is valid (the following regular expression allows dashes in the URL). If the URL address is not valid, it will output an error message:
$website = test_input($_POST["website"]);
if (!preg_match("/\b(?:(?:https?|ftp):\/\/|www\.)[-a-z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|]/i",$website)) {
$websiteErr = "Invalid URL";
}
PHP - Validate Name, Email, and URL
The code is as follows:
<?php
// Define variables and set to empty values
$nameErr = $emailErr = $genderErr = $websiteErr = "";
$name = $email = $gender = $comment = $website = "";
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
if (empty($_POST["name"])) {
$nameErr = "Name is required";
} else {
$name = test_input($_POST["name"]);
// Check if name only contains letters and whitespace
if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/",$name)) {
$nameErr = "Only letters and white space allowed";
}
}
if (empty($_POST["email"])) {
$emailErr = "Email is required";
} else {
$email = test_input($_POST["email"]);
// Check if e-mail address is well-formed
if (!preg_match("/([\w\-]+\@[\w\-]+\.[\w\-]+)/",$email)) {
$emailErr = "Invalid email format";
}
}
if (empty($_POST["website"])) {
$website = "";
} else {
$website = test_input($_POST["website"]);
// Check if URL address syntax is valid
if (!preg_match("/\b(?:(?:https?|ftp):\/\/|www\.)[-a-z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|]/i",$website)) {
$websiteErr = "Invalid URL";
}
}
}
?>
$websiteErr = "Invalid URL address";
}
}
if (empty($_POST["comment"])) {
$comment = "";
} else {
$comment = test_input($_POST["comment"]);
}
if (empty($_POST["gender"])) {
$genderErr = "Gender is required";
} else {
$gender = test_input($_POST["gender"]);
}
}
?>