HTML Form Tutorial Part IV: Server Side Form Processing

The previous three parts of this series (part 1, part 2 and part 3) explained how to create the HTML part of a web form (the client side). In order to make the form useful, we need to add server side processing support to the form.

Remember the diagram in part I of this tutorial?

How to create the server side form processing script?

There are scripting languages like PHP , ASP and Perl that can be used to write the server side form processing script. You have to find out which of them are supported on your web server. PHP is supported on almost all platforms. Linux, Apache web server and PHP is considered a good combination, often known as the LAMP bundle.

ASP is supported on the MS Windows platform (IIS web server).

In order to create the form processing script, you will have to learn one of those scripting languages. PHP is recommended since it is the most popular and widely supported one.

After learning the basic syntax, go the following tutorials to learn more about form processing:
PHP form tutorial
PHP form processing

Another alternative is to get a ready-made form processing script and slightly modify it to work with your form.

What is a Formmail script?

The Formmail script collects the form submissions and sends it to one or more email addresses.

A formmail script is the easiest way to collect submissions from the HTML forms. See the links below for more information:

Form mail script selection guide
Perl based form mail

Previous Part: HTML Form Tutorial Part III : Still More Input Elements

Related posts:

1. HTML Form Tutorial
2. HTML Form Tutorial Part III : Still More Input Elements
3. How to make a web form
4. HTML Form Tutorial Part II : More Input Elements
5. From an HTML Form to an Email Inbox
6. The HTML Form Tag
7. The HTML Form Submit Button
8. Can JavaScript email a form?
9. How to make a web form and get it online quickly
10. Simfatic Forms Validation: save your time coding

Tagged as: beginner, html form, html form tutorial, tutorial, web form