html - 2 forms on same page php

Question

My studybook gives me an assignment which requires me to have 2 forms on one page and output them both to the same page. Is this even possible? Both forms work fine independently. Both have the action:

<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>". 

Both have a submit button, but the button only submits the form it's part of. This probably makes sence though.

Thing is i need the page to either post both form outputs when clicking one of the 2 submit buttons or press them subsequently but the information from the first form needs to stay on the page.

Is this possible or am i trying do to the impossible?

the forms are as follows;

form 1:

<form name="orderform" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
Korting:
 <tr>
 <td>
 <input type="checkbox" name="korting[]" value=15 /> Student 15% <br>
 <input type="checkbox" name="korting[]" value=10 /> Senior 10% <br>
 <input type="checkbox" name="korting[]" value=5 /> Klant 5% <br>
 <hr />
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
 betalingswijze
 <input type="radio" name="betalingswijze" value="paypal"> Paypal
 <input type="radio" name="betalingswijze" value="mastercard"> Mastercard
 <input type="radio" name="betalingswijze" value="visa"> Visa
 <hr />
 </td>
 <tr>
 <td>
    <img src="toshiba.jpg" alt=" " />
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
    Toshiba Sattelite A100-510 Basisprijs 999.99
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><!--Shopping Cart Begin-->
    <input type="hidden" name="toshibaproduct" value="001" />
    <input type="hidden" name="toshibamerk" value="toshiba" />
    <input type="hidden" name="toshibamodel" value="Sattelite A100-510" />
    Operating system <select name="toshibaos" value="Toshiba">
    <option value="xp">Windows XP</option>
    <option value="vista">Windows Vista</option>
    <option value="linux">Linux</option>
    </select>
    Aantal: <input type="text" size=2 maxlength=3 name="toshibaaantal" value="0" />
    <input type="hidden" name="toshibaprijs" value="999.99" />

    <input type="image" src="bestel.jpg" border=0 value="bestellen" />
    <hr />

 <tr>
 <td>
    <img src="acer.jpg" alt=" " />
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
    Acer Aspire 5735Z Basisprijs 529.99
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>    
    <input type="hidden" name="acerproduct" value="002" />
    <input type="hidden" name="acermerk" value="acer" />
    <input type="hidden" name="acermodel" value="Aspire 5735Z" />
    Operating system <select name="aceros" value="Acer">
    <option value="xp">Windows XP</option>
    <option value="vista">Windows Vista</option>
    <option value="linux">Linux</option>
    </select>
    Aantal: <input type="text" size=2 maxlength=3 name="aceraantal" value="0" />
    <input type="hidden" name="acerprijs" value="529.99" />

    <input type="image" src="bestel.jpg" border=0 value="bestellen" />
    <hr />
    </td><!--Shopping Cart End-->
</tr>
</form>

Form 2

<form name="klant gegevens" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
<table border=1 >
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
    <b>Factuur klantgegevens</b>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100">Naam: </td>
<td>
    <input type="text" sie="55" name="naam" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<tr>
<td>Adres: </td>
<td>
    <input type="text" sie="55" name="adres" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Woonplaats:</td>
<td>
    <input type="text size="34" name="woonplaats">
    Postcode:<input type="text" size="6" name="postcode">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>e-mail:</td>
<td>
    <input type="text" size="55" name="email">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Feedback:</td>
<td>
<textarea cols="40" rows="3" name="commentaar">
</textarea>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<input type="image" src="checkout.png" value="send"/>
</form>

Both have functions which kick in on submit. Sorry for the spacings. I have them better in my own files but i just don't know how to get them right on this site.

Greetings,

Lennart

Answer 1

The action represent the page that will receive the posted data. You may use differents actions or the same action with different parameters. If you use the same action, you had to insert a parameter that permit to manage different cases. You may insert an hidden field to do this.

Consider these simple forms:

<form name="form_a" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="POST">
    <input type="hidden" name="form" value="A">
    <button type="submit">Form A</button>
</form>

<form name="form_b" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="POST">
    <input type="hidden" name="form" value="B">
    <button type="submit">Form B</button>
</form>

To manage the different submission, you had to check the value of the hidden field:

if(isset($_POST['form'])){

    switch ($_POST['form']) {
        case "A":
            echo "submitted A";
            break;

        case "B":
            echo "submitted B";
            break;

        default:
            echo "What are you doing?";
    } 
} 

You can't submit two separate forms at the same time, because each submission represent a different request to the server.

You may merge manually the fields of the two forms, or use Javascript to do this for you. Keep in mind that if you do this via Javascript, the field of the forms had to have differents names.

As you caan see here you can do simply via jQuery:

var str1 = $("form_a").serialize();
var str2 = $("form_b").serialize();
$.post(url, str1 + "&" + str2);

Where url is the action params of the form