oracular (3) HTML::FillInForm.3pm.gz
NAME
HTML::FillInForm - Populates HTML Forms with data.
VERSION
version 2.22
SYNOPSIS
Fill HTML form with data.
$output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( \$html, $q );
$output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( \@html, [$q1,$q2] );
$output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( \*HTML, \%data );
$output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( 't.html', [\%data1,%data2] );
The HTML can be provided as a scalarref, arrayref, filehandle or file. The data can come from one or
more hashrefs, or objects which support a param() method, like CGI.pm, Apache::Request, etc.
DESCRIPTION
This module fills in an HTML form with data from a Perl data structure, allowing you to keep the HTML and
Perl separate.
Here are two common use cases:
1. A user submits an HTML form without filling out a required field. You want to redisplay the form with
all the previous data in it, to make it easy for the user to see and correct the error.
2. You have just retrieved a record from a database and need to display it in an HTML form.
fill
The basic syntax is seen above the Synopsis. There are a few additional options.
Options
target => 'form1'
Suppose you have multiple forms in a html file and only want to fill in one.
$output = HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, $q, target => 'form1');
This will fill in only the form inside
<FORM name="form1"> ... </FORM>
fill_password => 0
Passwords are filled in by default. To disable:
fill_password => 0
ignore_fields => []
To disable the filling of some fields:
ignore_fields => ['prev','next']
disable_fields => []
To disable fields from being edited:
disable_fields => [ 'uid', 'gid' ]
invalid_fields => []
To mark fields as being invalid (CSS class set to "invalid" or whatever you set invalid_class to):
invalid_fields => [ 'uid', 'gid' ]
invalid_class => "invalid"
The CSS class which will be used to mark fields invalid. Defaults to "invalid".
clear_absent_checkboxes => 0
Absent fields are not cleared or in any way changed. This is not what you want when you deal with
checkboxes which are not sent by browser at all when cleared by user.
To remove "checked" attribute from checkboxes and radio buttons and attribute "selected" from options of
select lists for which there's no data:
clear_absent_checkboxes => 1
File Upload fields
File upload fields cannot be supported directly. Workarounds include asking the user to re-attach any
file uploads or fancy server-side storage and referencing. You are on your own.
Clearing Fields
Fields are cleared if you set their value to an empty string or empty arrayref but not undef:
# this will leave the form element foo untouched
HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, { foo => undef });
# this will set clear the form element foo
HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, { foo => "" });
It has been suggested to add a option to change the behavior so that undef values will clear the form
elements. Patches welcome.
You can also use "clear_absent_checkboxes" option to clear checkboxes, radio buttons and selects without
corresponding keys in the data:
# this will set clear the form element foo (and all others except
# bar)
HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, { bar => 123 },
clear_absent_checkboxes => 1);
Old syntax
You probably need to read no further. The remaining docs concern the 1.x era syntax, which is still
supported.
new
Call "new()" to create a new FillInForm object:
$fif = HTML::FillInForm->new;
$fif->fill(...);
In theory, there is a slight performance benefit to calling "new()" before "fill()" if you make multiple
calls to "fill()" before you destroy the object. Benchmark before optimizing.
fill ( old syntax )
Instead of having your HTML and data types auto-detected, you can declare them explicitly in your call to
"fill()":
HTML source options:
arrayref => @html
scalarref => $html
file => \*HTML
file => 't.html'
Fill Data options:
fobject => $data_obj # with param() method
fdat => \%data
Additional methods are also available:
fill_file(\*HTML,...);
fill_file('t.html',...);
fill_arrayref(\@html,...);
fill_scalarref(\$html,...);
USING AN ALTERNATE PARSER
It's possible to use an alternate parser to HTML::Parser if the alternate provides a sufficiently
compatible interface. For example, when a Pure Perl implementation of HTML::Parser appears, it could be
used for portability. The syntax is simply to provide a "parser_class" to new();
HTML::FillInForm->new( parser_class => 'MyAlternate::Parser' );
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/?FAQ:HTTPAndHTML#h-how_can_i_populate_form_values_automatically_>
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.
There is a nice review of the module available here: <http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=274534>
SEE ALSO
HTML::Parser, Data::FormValidator, HTML::Template, Apache::PageKit
CREDITS
Fixes, Bug Reports, Docs have been generously provided by:
Alex Kapranoff Miika Pekkarinen
Michael Fisher Sam Tregar
Tatsuhiko Miyagawa Joseph Yanni
Boris Zentner Philip Mak
Dave Rolsky Jost Krieger
Patrick Michael Kane Gabriel Burka
Ade Olonoh Bill Moseley
Tom Lancaster James Tolley
Martin H Sluka Dan Kubb
Mark Stosberg Alexander Hartmaier
Jonathan Swartz Paul Miller
Trevor Schellhorn Anthony Ettinger
Jim Miner Simon P. Ditner
Paul Lindner Michael Peters
Maurice Aubrey Trevor Schellhorn
Andrew Creer
Thanks!
AUTHOR
TJ Mather, tjmather@maxmind.com
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2000 by TJ Mather, tjmather@maxmind.com. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.