This example is a simple HTML form and a php page to display the form values. A HTML form is just a <form>...</form> that includes input, select, and textarea tags. You can try the form at example-7a.php. To view the source for example-7a.php and example-7b.txt.
The is everything inside the tags:
<form action="action" method="method">
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</form>The action tells the browser where to submit the form, and the method tells it how to submit the form.
Most of a form will be <input> tags. The most common options for input are radio, checkbox, text, and submit. The basic syntax for an input tag is:
<input type="input_type" name="variable_name" value="variable_value">You can see various options being used in example-7a.php.
Another common tag in a form is the <select> tag. This gives a menu of values for the user to select from. This can be a dropdown menu, or a multiple line menu. The basic syntax for select is:
<select name="variable_name">
<option value="variable_value">option text</option>
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</select>If you obmit the value, the select will return the "option text."
A third common tag is the <textarea>. This is a way to allow users to enter large sections of text. The syntax for this is:
<textarea name="variable_name" cols="number_of_columns" rows="number_of_rows">optional text</textarea>If you look at the source files [example-7a.php and example-7b.txt], you should have a pretty good idea of how a very basic HTML form works.