NAME

HTML::FillInForm - Populates HTML Forms with CGI data.

DESCRIPTION

This module automatically inserts data from a previous HTML form into the HTML input, textarea and select tags. It is a subclass of HTML::Parser and uses it to parse the HTML and insert the values into the form tags.

One useful application is after a user submits an HTML form without filling out a required field. HTML::FillInForm can be used to redisplay the HTML form with all the form elements containing the submitted info.

SYNOPSIS

This examples fills data into a HTML form stored in $htmlForm from CGI parameters that are stored in $q. For example, it will set the value of any "name" textfield to "John Smith".

  my $q = new CGI;

  $q->param("name","John Smith");

  my $fif = new HTML::FillInForm;
  my $output = $fif->fill(scalarref => \$html,
                          fobject => $q);

METHODS

new

Call new() to create a new FillInForm object:

  $fif = new HTML::FillInForm;

fill

To fill in a HTML form contained in a scalar $html:

  $output = $fif->fill(scalarref => \$html,
             fobject => $q);

Returns filled in HTML form contained in $html with data from $q. $q is required to have a param() method that works like CGI's param().

  $output = $fif->fill(scalarref => \$html,
             fobject => [$q1, $q2]);

Note that you can pass multiple objects as an array reference.

  $output = $fif->fill(scalarref => \$html,
             fdat => \%fdat);

Returns filled in HTML form contained in $html with data from %fdat. To pass multiple values using %fdat use an array reference.

Alternately you can use

  $output = $fif->fill(arrayref => \@array_of_lines,
             fobject => $q);

and

  $output = $fif->fill(file => 'form.tmpl',
             fobject => $q);

Suppose you have multiple forms in a html and among them there is only one form you want to fill in, specify target.

  $output = $fif->fill(scalarref => \$html,
                       fobject => $q,
                       target => 'form1');

This will fill in only the form inside

  <FORM name="form1"> ... </FORM>

Note that this method fills in password fields by default. To disable, pass

  fill_password => 0

To disable the filling of some fields, use the ignore_fields option:

  $output = $fif->fill(scalarref => \$html,
                       fobject => $q,
                       ignore_fields => ['prev','next']);

CALLING FROM OTHER MODULES

Apache::PageKit

To use HTML::FillInForm in Apache::PageKit is easy. It is automatically called for any page that includes a <form> tag. It can be turned on or off by using the fill_in_form configuration option.

Apache::ASP v2.09 and above

HTML::FillInForm is now integrated with Apache::ASP. To activate, use

  PerlSetVar FormFill 1
  $Response->{FormFill} = 1

HTML::Mason

Using HTML::FillInForm from HTML::Mason is covered in the FAQ on the masonhq.com website at http://www.masonhq.com/docs/faq/#how_can_i_integrate_html_fillin

VERSION

This documentation describes HTML::FillInForm module version 1.03.

SECURITY

Note that you might want to think about caching issues if you have password fields on your page. There is a discussion of this issue at

http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=70482

In summary, some browsers will cache the output of CGI scripts, and you can control this by setting the Expires header. For example, use -expires in CGI.pm or set browser_cache to no in Config.xml file of Apache::PageKit.

TRANSLATION

Kato Atsushi has translated these docs into Japanese, available from

http://perldoc.jp

BUGS

Please submit any bug reports to tjmather@maxmind.com.

NOTES

Requires Perl 5.005 and HTML::Parser version 3.26.

I wrote this module because I wanted to be able to insert CGI data into HTML forms, but without combining the HTML and Perl code. CGI.pm and Embperl allow you so insert CGI data into forms, but require that you mix HTML with Perl.

AUTHOR

(c) 2002 Thomas J. Mather, tjmather@maxmind.com

All rights reserved. This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Paid support is available from directly from the author of this package. Please see http://www.maxmind.com/app/opensourceservices for more details.

SEE ALSO

HTML::Parser, Data::FormValidator, HTML::Template, Apache::PageKit

CREDITS

Fixes, Bug Reports, Docs have been generously provided by:

  Tatsuhiko Miyagawa
  Boris Zentner
  Patrick Michael Kane
  Ade Olonoh
  Tom Lancaster
  Martin H Sluka
  Mark Stosberg
  Jonathan Swartz
  Trevor Schellhorn
  Jim Miner
  Paul Lindner
  Maurice Aubrey
  Andrew Creer
  Joseph Yanni
  Philip Mak
  Jost Krieger
  Gabriel Burka
  Bill Moseley

Thanks!

cpanm HTML::FillInForm

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install HTML::FillInForm