Sunday, July 1, 2012

Registration form using PHP

Here is the registration form:

<form id='register' action='register.php' method='post'
    accept-charset='UTF-8'>
<fieldset >
<legend>Register</legend>
<input type='hidden' name='submitted' id='submitted' value='1'/>
<label for='name' >Your Full Name*: </label>
<input type='text' name='name' id='name' maxlength="50" />
<label for='email' >Email Address*:</label>
<input type='text' name='email' id='email' maxlength="50" />
<label for='username' >UserName*:</label>
<input type='text' name='username' id='username' maxlength="50" />
<label for='password' >Password*:</label>
<input type='password' name='password' id='password' maxlength="50" />
<input type='submit' name='Submit' value='Submit' />
</fieldset>
</form>


Form validation

At this point it is a good idea to put some form validation code in place, so we make sure that we have all the data required to create the user account. We need to check if name and email, and password are filled in and that the email is in the proper format.

We can use the free JavaScript form validation script to add form validations quickly and easily, with lesser code.

Here is a sample JavaScript validation code to be used for the sample form we created earlier:

var frmvalidator  = new Validator("register");
frmvalidator.EnableOnPageErrorDisplay();
frmvalidator.EnableMsgsTogether();
frmvalidator.addValidation("name","req","Please provide your name");
frmvalidator.addValidation("email","req","Please provide your email address");
frmvalidator.addValidation("email","email","Please provide a valid email address");
frmvalidator.addValidation("username","req","Please provide a username");
frmvalidator.addValidation("password","req","Please provide a password");


Handling the form submission

Now we have to handle the form data that is submitted.

Here is the sequence (see the file fg_membersite.php in the downloaded source):

function RegisterUser()
{
    if(!isset($_POST['submitted']))
    {
       return false;
    }
    $formvars = array();
    if(!$this->ValidateRegistrationSubmission())
    {
        return false;
    }
    $this->CollectRegistrationSubmission($formvars);
    if(!$this->SaveToDatabase($formvars))
    {
        return false;
    }
    if(!$this->SendUserConfirmationEmail($formvars))
    {
        return false;
    }
    $this->SendAdminIntimationEmail($formvars);
    return true;
}



Saving the data in the database

Now that we gathered all the data, we need to store it into the database.
Here is how we save the form submission to the database.

function SaveToDatabase(&$formvars)
   {
       if(!$this->DBLogin())
       {
           $this->HandleError("Database login failed!");
           return false;
       }
       if(!$this->Ensuretable())
       {
           return false;
       }
       if(!$this->IsFieldUnique($formvars,'email'))
       {
           $this->HandleError("This email is already registered");
           return false;
       }
       if(!$this->IsFieldUnique($formvars,'username'))
       {
           $this->HandleError("This UserName is already used. Please try another username");
           return false;
       }
       if(!$this->InsertIntoDB($formvars))
       {
           $this->HandleError("Inserting to Database failed!");
           return false;
       }
       return true;
   }
Note that you have configured the Database login details in the membersite_config.php file. Most of the cases, you can use "localhost" for database host.
After logging in, we make sure that the table is existing.(If not, the script will create the required table).
Then we make sure that the username and email are unique. If it is not unique, we return error back to the user.

The database table structure

This is the table structure. The CreateTable() function in the fg_membersite.php file creates the table. Here is the code:

function CreateTable()
{
    $qry = "Create Table $this->tablename (".
            "id_user INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,".
            "name VARCHAR( 128 ) NOT NULL ,".
            "email VARCHAR( 64 ) NOT NULL ,".
            "phone_number VARCHAR( 16 ) NOT NULL ,".
            "username VARCHAR( 16 ) NOT NULL ,".
            "password VARCHAR( 32 ) NOT NULL ,".
            "confirmcode VARCHAR(32) ,".
            "PRIMARY KEY ( id_user )".
            ")";
    if(!mysql_query($qry,$this->connection))
    {
        $this->HandleDBError("Error creating the table \nquery was\n $qry");
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}
The id_user field will contain the unique id of the user, and is also the primary key of the table. Notice that we allow 32 characters for the password field. We do this because, as an added security measure, we will store the password in the database encrypted using MD5. Please note that because MD5 is an one-way encryption method, we won't be able to recover the password in case the user forgets it.

Inserting the registration to the table

Here is the code that we use to insert data into the database. We will have all our data available in the $formvars array.

function InsertIntoDB(&$formvars)
{
    $confirmcode = $this->MakeConfirmationMd5($formvars['email']);
    $insert_query = 'insert into '.$this->tablename.'(
            name,
            email,
            username,
            password,
            confirmcode
            )
            values
            (
            "' . $this->SanitizeForSQL($formvars['name']) . '",
            "' . $this->SanitizeForSQL($formvars['email']) . '",
            "' . $this->SanitizeForSQL($formvars['username']) . '",
            "' . md5($formvars['password']) . '",
            "' . $confirmcode . '"
            )';
    if(!mysql_query( $insert_query ,$this->connection))
    {
        $this->HandleDBError("Error inserting data to the table\nquery:$insert_query");
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}
Notice that we use PHP function md5() to encrypt the password before inserting it into the database.
Also, we make the unique confirmation code from the user's email address.

Sending emails

Now that we have the registration in our database, we will send a confirmation email to the user. The user has to click a link in the confirmation email to complete the registration process.

function SendUserConfirmationEmail(&$formvars)
{
    $mailer = new PHPMailer();
    $mailer->CharSet = 'utf-8';
    $mailer->AddAddress($formvars['email'],$formvars['name']);
    $mailer->Subject = "Your registration with ".$this->sitename;
    $mailer->From = $this->GetFromAddress();
    $confirmcode = urlencode($this->MakeConfirmationMd5($formvars['email']));
    $confirm_url = $this->GetAbsoluteURLFolder().'/confirmreg.php?code='.$confirmcode;
    $mailer->Body ="Hello ".$formvars['name']."\r\n\r\n".
    "Thanks for your registration with ".$this->sitename."\r\n".
    "Please click the link below to confirm your registration.\r\n".
    "$confirm_url\r\n".
    "\r\n".
    "Regards,\r\n".
    "Webmaster\r\n".
    $this->sitename;
    if(!$mailer->Send())
    {
        $this->HandleError("Failed sending registration confirmation email.");
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}



1 comment:

  1. Hi, I am using your code in my website for registration. the confirmation code is wrong. below is an example of confirmation code
    Hello ven

    Thanks for your registration with pogaru.com
    Please click the link below to confirm your registration.
    http://www.pogaru.com\/confirmreg.php?code=49277b0cdc6ca4746ebb0c29cd22fda0

    Regards,
    Webmaster
    pogaru.com
    if if click on the link, link is not working. I f i remove back slash after pogaru.com and run then the next process is activating. pls guide me how to remove backslash from the code.

    ReplyDelete