Forms are the bain of many web-developers, with the need for data validation, CSRF (Cross-site request forgery) protection, form manipulation and integration with web applications. They take a long time to code and can be extremely fiddly to get right! However, my good friend and fellow developer Richard Willars has came up with a fantastic solution!

Richard’s Form Processor Class

Richard’s form processor is one of the biggest aids I have ever came across in my time as a web developer. It allows you to quickly and easily build functional forms complete with validation and security checks, in a very easy to use markup language that can be understood by anyone with a bit of a brain!

This xml style markup language is run through the form processor, which extracts any validation / processing rules you specify, recreates the form in XHTML markup and sends it back to the browser complete with the appropriate error messages.

Having used this class since its release I would like to think I have quite an in-depth knowledge of its power and potential.

For this reason I will be providing a series of tutorials all using Richard’s fantastic form processor. Each one will be of a real life example, and I will break it down to show how the form processor makes it easier to use, as well as show how the markup works and most importantly how you can apply the theory to your own projects.

All scripts provided will be fully working production ready scripts which you are free to use. The form processor is aimed at all PHP developers regardless of skill level, and although novice users can learn a lot about PHP from these tutorials, the more advanced users can use them as a point of reference in integrating the form processor into their own applications.

The first of these tutorials will be a contact form, which will be going up on my blog shortly!