Advanced Commercial Web Site Design: ServerSide Scripting

1
Advanced Commercial Web Site Design Server-Side
Scripting

• Session 6-1
• Interacting with web-pages (B)

2
Outline

• Form processing in PHP
• POST method
• Advantages / Disadvantages

3
POST method

• It passes information (arguments) from one
  web-page to another by including it in the body
  of the form. Nothing is visible to the URI
  string.
• Advantages
• Security The information entered by the user is
  not shown to the query string or the server logs.
• Capacity The limit of the amount of data is
  larger than in GET method.
• Disadvantages
• Bookmarks The results cannot be stored as
  bookmarks since the URL is always the same.
• Firewall Some strict firewalls tend to strip the
  body of the forms and the included information is
  lost.

1. Uniform Resource Indicator. Also known as URL
(Uniform Resource Locator)
4
Example on POST method

• Assume a HTML file with a simple form like the
  following
• ltbodygt
• ltform action" http//ace2069.group.shef.ac.uk/co
  mweb2/post.php " methodPOST"gt
• ltpgtFirst name ltinput type"text" size12
  name"FirstName"gt
• ltpgtltinput type"submit"gt
• lt/formgt
• lt/bodygt
• And the corresponding PHP script with the
  following code
• ltbodygt
• lt?php
• print("Your first name is FirstName!")
• ?gt
• lt/bodygt

5
Use of GET POST method

• When to use GET methodWhen we need to pull
  information (non-secure)
• Site navigation
• Searching
• When to use POST methodWhen we need to put
  information to the back-end storage and be secure
• Add information to a database
• Authentication/Authorization

6
Exercise 6.1-1

• Convert the bank details exercise (5.2) to use
  the POST method instead of GET.
• Which parts of the code should be changed?
• Which method is better for this exercise and why?