Forms Issue

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom Robb
  • Start date Start date
T

Tom Robb

Hi,

I guess I am confused as to the information that you
need - just like a patient.

The form has a ton of fields. The user entered text into
the text boxes, checked the Boolean fields, then hit the
submit button. She and I both only entered data (ie text
and numbers, /, -,) into the 5 required fields and left
the others blank (as many other users have done with
success). I still have new users submitting information
everyday.

If you can be specific as to exactly what information I
need to give you - other than what kind of data, then I
can do that. The user and I both entered data - text and
numbers into specific fields and hit submit, got the
confirmation sheet, but the data is NOT in my database.

Maybe she just needs to make an adjustment to settings in
Internet Explorer to make it happen, that is what I don't
know and I really need some help here. I can help you if
you can help me find out exactly the information you
would need to diagnose the problem.


Sincerely,

Tom Robb

You said to find out exactly what the user was entering
into the fields. What I thought I would do is find a
user that successfully submitted data, go to the user who
is having problems, enter the data on her computer, and
see if it came through, and it did NOT.

Does that make sense?
Click to expand...

Not really, since that isn't what I asked you to do. If I
am to help you, I
need information, just like a Doctor. If your Doctor
asked you to cough,
would you bend over instead?

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
...Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.


message
OK, the keyword was ANOTHER user. I said I used the same
data format that a successful user had at the site where
the user is having problems and had no success.

You said to find out exactly what the user was entering
into the fields. What I thought I would do is find a
user that successfully submitted data, go to the user who
is having problems, enter the data on her computer, and
see if it came through, and it did NOT.

Does that make sense?





I went to the users site and entered data EXACTLY in the through.

I'm confused. First you said that you entered the data
exactly as the user
did and had success. Then you said that you entered the
data and it failed.
I don't understand the difference between what you did
that was successful
and what was not.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

if
Click to expand...
appreciated.

..
 
Okay, let me explain what I'm after here. From what you've told me, it
sounds like a validation issue. If the app works for everyone but one
person, the app works. There is something about that one person that is
causing a problem. It has nothing to do with Internet Explorer; ASP is
server-side programming. Typically, when a FrontPage-generated ASP data
input form is submitted, and no data is entered, an error has occurred
inserting the data. If the problem happens on only one client, the greatest
probability is that that person is inputting some bad data. As I explained
earlier, a database stores different kinds of data in different ways, and
some data must be in a certain format to prevent errors. For example, a
number can't be blank, because nothing is not a number. A date string must
be in a certain format in order for the database to read it. This is
typically controlled in the user interface (in this case a form in a web
page), by using a validation script, which checks the input of each form
field to make sure that the data is there in the correct format. You already
indicated that your date field validation is incorrect; it will allow
incorrect dates to be passed in. That would certainly be a problem. In any
case, the greated probability in your case seems to be bad validation on the
client browser. That is why I asked you to find out exactly what the user is
inputting into the form, to identify any places where form validation is not
catching the bad data.

The most typical sources of bad data in a web page for collecting form input
are dates and numbers. Strings go into the query as whatever is in the form
field, enclosed in single quotes. If nothing is in the form field, an empty
string (which is fine in most cases) is entered. Numbers go straight into
the query with no punctuation. That makes an empty number field throw an
error. Example:

Form fields not left blank:
INSERT INTO mytable (somestringcolumn, somenumbercolumn)
VALUES ('Some String', 0)

Form fields left blank:
INSERT INTO mytable (somestringcolumn, somenumbercolumn)
VALUES ('',)

Note the bad SQL Statement resulting from the empty number field.
--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.
 
Thanks, that helps.

I am going to recreate the entire form in a fresh subweb
anyway, so I will see if this can help the problem.
 
Back
Top