👀 Views: 69 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-12

php filter_input form-validation PHP

I've been banging my head against this for hours. I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help. I'm working on a personal project and I'm working on a project and hit a roadblock... I'm experiencing an scenario where `filter_input` is returning null for some expected form inputs in PHP 8.1. I have a form that collects user data including name and email. I used the `filter_input()` function to sanitize the inputs, but for some reason, when I submit the form, the email input is often returning null. Here's my code: ```php if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') { $name = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'name', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING); $email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL); if ($name && $email) { // Process the data } else { echo 'Name or email is invalid.'; } } ``` I'm using a simple HTML form like this: ```html <form method="POST"> <input type="text" name="name" required> <input type="email" name="email" required> <button type="submit">Submit</button> </form> ``` When testing, I noticed that if I submit the form without entering an email, PHP returns null for the email variable, which is expected. However, if I enter a proper email format but the input is somehow excluded due to client-side validations or browser autocomplete, I still get null. I’ve checked my PHP settings and `filter_input` is properly configured, but I suspect there might be an interaction with PHP's behavior handling or configuration that I’m missing. The scenario occurs even if the form is filled correctly but the input is not recognized due to some edge case. Any suggestions on how to either ensure the email is always processed or to handle this edge case gracefully? This is part of a larger web app I'm building. Thanks in advance! My development environment is Linux. Am I missing something obvious? I'm working on a CLI tool that needs to handle this. How would you solve this? I'm working on a service that needs to handle this. Is there a better approach?