=head1 NAME CGI::QuickForm - Perl module to provide quick CGI forms. =head1 SYNOPSIS # Minimal example. (Insecure no error checking.) #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict ; use CGI qw( :standard :html3 ) ; use CGI::QuickForm ; show_form( -ACCEPT => \&on_valid_form, # You must supply this subroutine. -TITLE => 'Test Form', -FIELDS => [ { -LABEL => 'Name', }, # Default field type is textfield. { -LABEL => 'Age', }, # Stored in param( 'Age' ). ], ) ; sub on_valid_form { my $name = param( 'Forename' ) ; my $age = param( 'Age' ) ; open PEOPLE, ">>people.tab" ; print "$name\t$age\n" ; close PEOPLE ; print header, start_html( 'Test Form Acceptance' ), h3( 'Test Form Data Accepted' ), p( "Thank you $name for your data." ), end_html ; } # All QuickForm options #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict ; use CGI qw( :standard :html3 ) ; use CGI::QuickForm ; show_form( -ACCEPT => \&on_valid_form, -BUTTONLABEL => 'Submit', -FOOTER => undef, -HEADER => undef, -LANGUAGE => 'en', -TITLE => 'Test Form', -VALIDATE => undef, # Set this to validate the entire record -SIZE => undef, -MAXLENGTH => undef, -ROWS => undef, -COLUMNS => undef, -FIELDS => [ { -LABEL => 'Name', -REQUIRED => undef, -TYPE => 'textfield', -VALIDATE => undef, # Set this to validate the field # Lowercase options are those supplied by CGI.pm -name => undef, # Defaults to -LABEL's value. -default => undef, -size => 30, -maxlength => undef, }, { -LABEL => 'Address', -REQUIRED => undef, -TYPE => 'textarea', -VALIDATE => undef, -name => undef, # Defaults to -LABEL's value. -default => undef, -rows => 3, -columns => 40, }, { -LABEL => 'Password', -REQUIRED => undef, -TYPE => 'password_field', -VALIDATE => undef, -name => undef, # Defaults to -LABEL's value. -value => undef, -size => 10, -maxlength => undef, }, { -LABEL => 'Hair colour', -REQUIRED => undef, -TYPE => 'scrolling_list', -VALIDATE => undef, -name => undef, # Defaults to -LABEL's value. -values => [ qw( Red Black Brown Grey White ) ], -size => 1, -multiples => undef, }, { -LABEL => 'Worst Sport', -REQUIRED => undef, -TYPE => 'radio_group', -VALIDATE => undef, -name => undef, # Defaults to -LABEL's value. -values => [ qw( Boxing Cricket Golf ) ], -default => 'Golf', -size => undef, -multiples => undef, }, # Any other CGI.pm field can be used in the same way. ], ) ; =head1 DESCRIPTION C, provides a quick and simple mechanism for providing on-line CGI forms. When C executes it presents the form with the fields requested. As you can see from the minimal example at the beginning of the synopsis it will default everything it possibly can to get you up and running as quickly as possible. If you have specified any validation it will validate when the user presses the submit button. If there is an error it will re-present the form with the erroneous fields marked and with all the data entered in tact. This is repeated as often as needed. Once the user has corrected all errors and the data is valid then your C<&on_valid_form> subroutine will be called so that you can process the valid data in any way you wish. =head2 QuickForm form-level (record-level) options C<-ACCEPT> Required subroutine reference. This is a reference to the subroutine to execute when the form is successfully completed, i.e. once all the fields and the whole record are valid (either because no validation was requested or because every validation subroutine called returned true). The parameters are accessible via C, so your C<&on_valid_form> may look something like this: sub on_valid_form { my $first_param = param( 'first' ) ; my $second_param = param( 'second' ) ; my $third_param = param( 'third' ) ; # Process, e.g. send an email or write a record to a file or database. # Give the user a thank you. } C<-BUTTONLABEL> Optional string. This is the label that appears on the submit button. It defaults to 'Submit', but may be any string. C<-FOOTER> Optional string. This is used to present any text following the form and if used it must include everything up to and including final "", e.g.: my $footer = p( "Thank's for your efforts." ) . h6( "Copyright (c) 1999 Summer plc" ) . end_html ; show_form( -FOOTER => $footer, # etc C<-HEADER> Optional string. This is used to present your own title and text before the form proper. If you use this it must include everything from "Content-type: text/html" onwards. For example: my $header = header . start_html( "This is my Title" ) . h2( "My new Form" ) . p( "Please answer the questions!" ) ; show_form( -HEADER => $header, # etc C<-LANGUAGE> Optional string. This option only has one valid setting, 'en' (english). If people provide me with translations I will add other languages. This is used for the presentation of messages to the user, e.g.: Please enter the information. Fields marked with + are required. Fields marked with * contain errors or are empty. C<-TITLE> Required string (unless you use C<-HEADER>). This is used as the form's title and as a header on the form's page - unless you use the C<-HEADER> option (see above) in which case this option is ignored. C<-VALIDATE> Optional subroutine reference. This routine is called after each individual field has been validated. It is given the fields in a name=>value hash and must return true if the record as a whole is valid, false otherwise. Typically it may have this structure: sub valid_record { my %field = @_ ; my $valid = 1 ; # Do some multi-field validation, e.g. # if( $field{'colour'} eq 'blue' and # $field{'make'} eq 'estate' ) { # $valid = 0 ; # No blue estates available. # } # etc. $valid ; # Return the valid variable which may now be false. } C<-COLUMNS> Optional integer. If set then any C<-TYPE =E textarea> will have a C<-columns> set to this value unless an explicit C<-columns> is given. C<-MAXLENGTH> Optional integer. If set then any C<-TYPE =E textfield> will have a C<-maxlength> set to this value unless an explicit C<-maxlength> is given. C<-ROWS> Optional integer. If set then any C<-TYPE =E textarea> will have a C<-rows> set to this value unless an explicit C<-rows> is given. C<-SIZE> Optional integer. If set then any C<-TYPE =E textfield> will have a C<-size> set to this value unless an explicit C<-size> is given. For example: show_form( -ACCEPT => \&on_valid_form, # You must supply this subroutine. -TITLE => 'Test Form', -SIZE => 50, -FIELDS => [ { -LABEL => 'Name', }, { -LABEL => 'Age', }, ], ) ; # Both the fields will be textfields because that is the default and both # will have a -size of 50. show_form( -ACCEPT => \&on_valid_form, # You must supply this subroutine. -TITLE => 'Test Form', -SIZE => 50, -MAXLENGTH => 70, -FIELDS => [ { -LABEL => 'Name', }, { -LABEL => 'Age', }, { -LABEL => 'Country', -size => 20, }, ], ) ; # All three fields will be textfields. Name and Age will have a -size of # 50 but Country will have a -size of 20. All three will have a -maxlength # of 70. C<-FIELDS> Required array reference. This is an array of hashes; there must be at least one. The fields are displayed in the order given. The options available in each field hash are covered in the next section. =head2 QuickForm field-level options C<-LABEL> Required string. This is the display label for the field. It is also used as the field's name if no C<-name> option is used. C<-REQUIRED> Optional boolean. Default is false. If set to true the field must contain something. Should only be used with text fields. It is ignored if C<-VALIDATE> is given since C<-VALIDATE> overrides (see later). C<-TYPE> Optional string. Default is C. May be any field supported by C. C<-VALIDATE> Optional subroutine reference. If specified this subroutine will be called when the user presses the submit button; its argument will be the value of the field; it must return true if the field is valid false otherwise. Its typical structure may be: sub valid_national_insurance { my $ni = shift ; $ni = uc $ni ; ( $ni =~ /^[A-Z]{2}\d{7}[A-Z]$/o ) ? 1 : 0 ; } =head2 CGI.pm field-level options All the other options passed in the hash should be the lowercase options supported by C for the particular field type. For example for a C<-TYPE> of C the options currently supported are C<-name>, C<-default>, C<-size> and C<-maxlength>; you may use any, all or none of them since C always provides sensible defaults. See "All QuickForm options" in the SYNOPSIS above for examples of the most common field types. =head2 EXAMPLE #1: Using a form to generate email This program is provided as an example of QuickForm's capabilities, it is not a production-quality program: it has no error checking and is I secure. #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict ; use CGI qw( :standard :html3 ) ; use CGI::QuickForm ; show_form( -TITLE => 'Test Form', -ACCEPT => \&on_valid_form, -FIELDS => [ { -LABEL => 'Forename', -REQUIRED => 1, }, { -LABEL => 'Surname', -REQUIRED => 1, }, { -LABEL => 'Age', }, { -LABEL => 'Sex', -TYPE => 'radio_group', '-values' => [ qw( Female Male ) ], }, ], ) ; # This subroutine will only be called if the name fields contain at # least one character. sub on_valid_form { my $forename = param( 'Forename' ) ; my $surname = param( 'Surname' ) ; my $age = param( 'Age' ) ; open MAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -t" ; print MAIL "From: test\@localhost\n" . "To: user\@localhost\n" . "Subject: Quick Form Email Test\n\n" . "Name: $forename $surname\n" . "Age: $age\n" ; print header, start_html( 'Test Form Data Accepted' ), h3( 'Test Form Data Accepted' ), p( "Thank you $forename for your data." ), end_html ; } =head2 EXAMPLE #2: Appending data to a file This program is provided as an example of QuickForm's capabilities, it is not a production-quality program: it has no error checking and is I secure. #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict ; use CGI qw( :standard :html3 ) ; use CGI::QuickForm ; show_form( -TITLE => 'Test Form', -ACCEPT => \&on_valid_form, -VALIDATE => \&valid_form, -SIZE => 40, -MAXLENGTH => 60, -FIELDS => [ { -LABEL => 'Forename', -VALIDATE => \&valid_name, }, { -LABEL => 'Surname', -VALIDATE => \&valid_name, }, { -LABEL => 'Age', # &mk_valid_number generates a subroutine (a closure) and # returns a reference to that subroutine. -VALIDATE => &mk_valid_number( 3, 130 ), -size => 10, -maxlength => 3, }, ], ) ; # This will only be called if all the validation routines return true. sub on_valid_form { my $forename = param( 'Forename' ) ; my $surname = param( 'Surname' ) ; my $age = param( 'Age' ) ; open FILE, ">>namedata.tab" ; print FILE "$surname\t$forename\t$age\n" ; close FILE ; print header, start_html( 'Test Form Data Accepted' ), h3( 'Test Form Data Accepted' ), p( "Thank you $forename for your data." ), end_html ; } # This is called to validate the entire form (record). # Use a routine like this if there are relationships between fields that # must be tested. sub valid_form { my %rec = @_ ; my $valid = 1 ; # We don't allow (perfectly valid!) names like 'John John'. $valid = 0 if lc $surname eq lc $forename ; $valid ; } sub valid_name { my $name = shift ; my $valid = 1 ; $valid = 0 if $name !~ /^\w{2,}$/o ; $valid ; } sub mk_valid_number { my( $min, $max ) = @_ ; sub { $min <= $_[0] and $_[0] <= $max } ; } =head1 BUGS None that have come to light (yet). =head1 CHANGES 1999/08/24 Created. Thanks to Paul Johnston for the idea. 1999/08/28 Version 1.00. 1999/09/01 Corrected Makefile.PL plus minor improvements to the code and documentation. 1999/09/15 Now use language of 'en' for english (although 'english' is supported for backward compatibility). 1999/09/16 Corrected some documentation errors. Added some new options so that you can default the size of every textfield and textarea (but still override the defaults individually of course), see the -SIZE, -MAXLENGTH, -ROWS and -COLUMNS options. INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE: Instead of calling QuickForm::run, you now call show_form. (This is because of a mistake made in earlier versions regarding QuickForm's package which has now been corrected. Sorry for this inconvenience.) =head1 AUTHOR Mark Summerfield. I can be contacted as - please include the word 'quickform' in the subject line. =head1 COPYRIGHT Copyright (c) Mark Summerfield 1999. All Rights Reserved. This module may be used/distributed/modified under the LGPL. =cut