Lesson 8: String handling and date / time

We'll start by declaring variables "$today" and "$now", using the format patterns of your choice, then setting up instructions to format first name and last name to have the structure discussed in lecture, ending up with the notification page to the user reflecting the date and time of the sign up request and echoing the generated user filename.

• Open your cgis/AddTraveler.php and add the following pieces of code:
   
  • In the general comments at the top, after "invoked using POST from signUp.shtml", add a comment like: build $userfile = "$ffirst$flast.shtml" with no spaces, commas, slashes, apostrophes or periods
     
  • In the comment about building a response page, add the phrase "and the date and time"
     
  • After the declare of $addr_back, add a declare of $chars as in the lecture
     
  • After the declare of $msg, add declares for $today and $now using the format patterns of your choice
     
  • After the declare of $chars, add three lines of code to create $ffirst as $first with none of characters listed in $chars and with first letter uppercase and rest lower case
     
  • After creating $ffirst, add code similar to the handling above to create $flast
    
    Note: the variables $first and $last will continue to hold the first name and last name as entered by the user; $ffirst and $flast are to be used in generating file names
     
  • After the gathering of form variables data, add a comment like "/* build filename for user file */"
     
  • Then define $userfile as defined in the video
     
  • Following that define, add a comment like "/* supply defaults for missing values */"
     
  • Next check each of $referral, $ties, $hope, and $comment to see if they are empty, and if so, assign "not supplied" to those with no values
     
  • In the body of the response page generation code, after the 'echo' that displays the user's address, add an 'echo' of a <p> element containing "We noted your request arrived at $now on $today."
     
  • Then add an 'echo' of a <p> element containing "The name of the new traveler's personal file will be $userfile"
     
  • Use <p> tags to display each of the values in $referral, $ties, $hope, and $comment
     
• Save your updated AddTraveler.php file and upload this version to your cgis/ directory
   
• Test your updated CGI by going through the sign up page using a variety of names
   
• Validate the generated values for $ffirst and $flast and the format for the $today and $now variables