1HTML::FillInForm(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation HTML::FillInForm(3)
2
6 HTML::FillInForm - Populates HTML Forms with data.
7
9 version 2.22
10
12 Fill HTML form with data.
13 $output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( \$html, $q );
15 $output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( \@html, [$q1,$q2] );
16 $output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( \*HTML, \%data );
17 $output = HTML::FillInForm->fill( 't.html', [\%data1,%data2] );
18 The HTML can be provided as a scalarref, arrayref, filehandle or file.
20 The data can come from one or more hashrefs, or objects which support a
21 param() method, like CGI.pm, Apache::Request, etc.
22
24 This module fills in an HTML form with data from a Perl data structure,
25 allowing you to keep the HTML and Perl separate.
26 Here are two common use cases:
28 1. A user submits an HTML form without filling out a required field.
30 You want to redisplay the form with all the previous data in it, to
31 make it easy for the user to see and correct the error.
32 2. You have just retrieved a record from a database and need to display
34 it in an HTML form.
35
37 The basic syntax is seen above the Synopsis. There are a few additional
38 options.
39 Options
41 target => 'form1'
42 Suppose you have multiple forms in a html file and only want to fill in
44 one.
45 $output = HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, $q, target => 'form1');
47 This will fill in only the form inside
49 <FORM name="form1"> ... </FORM>
51 fill_password => 0
53 Passwords are filled in by default. To disable:
55 fill_password => 0
57 ignore_fields => []
59 To disable the filling of some fields:
61 ignore_fields => ['prev','next']
63 disable_fields => []
65 To disable fields from being edited:
67 disable_fields => [ 'uid', 'gid' ]
69 invalid_fields => []
71 To mark fields as being invalid (CSS class set to "invalid" or whatever
73 you set invalid_class to):
74 invalid_fields => [ 'uid', 'gid' ]
76 invalid_class => "invalid"
78 The CSS class which will be used to mark fields invalid. Defaults to
80 "invalid".
81 clear_absent_checkboxes => 0
83 Absent fields are not cleared or in any way changed. This is not what
85 you want when you deal with checkboxes which are not sent by browser at
86 all when cleared by user.
87 To remove "checked" attribute from checkboxes and radio buttons and
89 attribute "selected" from options of select lists for which there's no
90 data:
91 clear_absent_checkboxes => 1
93 File Upload fields
95 File upload fields cannot be supported directly. Workarounds include
96 asking the user to re-attach any file uploads or fancy server-side
97 storage and referencing. You are on your own.
98 Clearing Fields
100 Fields are cleared if you set their value to an empty string or empty
101 arrayref but not undef:
102 # this will leave the form element foo untouched
104 HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, { foo => undef });
105 # this will set clear the form element foo
107 HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, { foo => "" });
108 It has been suggested to add a option to change the behavior so that
110 undef values will clear the form elements. Patches welcome.
111 You can also use "clear_absent_checkboxes" option to clear checkboxes,
113 radio buttons and selects without corresponding keys in the data:
114 # this will set clear the form element foo (and all others except
116 # bar)
117 HTML::FillInForm->fill(\$html, { bar => 123 },
118 clear_absent_checkboxes => 1);
119
121 You probably need to read no further. The remaining docs concern the
122 1.x era syntax, which is still supported.
123 new
125 Call new() to create a new FillInForm object:
126 $fif = HTML::FillInForm->new;
128 $fif->fill(...);
129 In theory, there is a slight performance benefit to calling new()
131 before fill() if you make multiple calls to fill() before you destroy
132 the object. Benchmark before optimizing.
133 fill ( old syntax )
135 Instead of having your HTML and data types auto-detected, you can
136 declare them explicitly in your call to fill():
137 HTML source options:
139 arrayref => @html
141 scalarref => $html
142 file => \*HTML
143 file => 't.html'
144 Fill Data options:
146 fobject => $data_obj # with param() method
148 fdat => \%data
149 Additional methods are also available:
151 fill_file(\*HTML,...);
153 fill_file('t.html',...);
154 fill_arrayref(\@html,...);
155 fill_scalarref(\$html,...);
156
158 It's possible to use an alternate parser to HTML::Parser if the
159 alternate provides a sufficiently compatible interface. For example,
160 when a Pure Perl implementation of HTML::Parser appears, it could be
161 used for portability. The syntax is simply to provide a "parser_class"
162 to new();
163 HTML::FillInForm->new( parser_class => 'MyAlternate::Parser' );
165
167 Apache::PageKit
168 To use HTML::FillInForm in Apache::PageKit is easy. It is
169 automatically called for any page that includes a <form> tag. It can
170 be turned on or off by using the "fill_in_form" configuration option.
171 Apache::ASP v2.09 and above
173 HTML::FillInForm is now integrated with Apache::ASP. To activate, use
174 PerlSetVar FormFill 1
176 $Response->{FormFill} = 1
177 HTML::Mason
179 Using HTML::FillInForm from HTML::Mason is covered in the FAQ on the
180 masonhq.com website at
181 <http://www.masonhq.com/?FAQ:HTTPAndHTML#h-how_can_i_populate_form_values_automatically_>
182
184 Note that you might want to think about caching issues if you have
185 password fields on your page. There is a discussion of this issue at
186 http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=70482
188 In summary, some browsers will cache the output of CGI scripts, and you
190 can control this by setting the Expires header. For example, use
191 "-expires" in CGI.pm or set "browser_cache" to no in Config.xml file of
192 Apache::PageKit.
193
195 Kato Atsushi has translated these docs into Japanese, available from
196 http://perldoc.jp
198
200 Please submit any bug reports to tjmather@maxmind.com.
201
203 Requires Perl 5.005 and HTML::Parser version 3.26.
204 I wrote this module because I wanted to be able to insert CGI data into
206 HTML forms, but without combining the HTML and Perl code. CGI.pm and
207 Embperl allow you so insert CGI data into forms, but require that you
208 mix HTML with Perl.
209 There is a nice review of the module available here:
211 <http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=274534>
212
214 HTML::Parser, Data::FormValidator, HTML::Template, Apache::PageKit
215
217 Fixes, Bug Reports, Docs have been generously provided by:
218 Alex Kapranoff Miika Pekkarinen
220 Michael Fisher Sam Tregar
221 Tatsuhiko Miyagawa Joseph Yanni
222 Boris Zentner Philip Mak
223 Dave Rolsky Jost Krieger
224 Patrick Michael Kane Gabriel Burka
225 Ade Olonoh Bill Moseley
226 Tom Lancaster James Tolley
227 Martin H Sluka Dan Kubb
228 Mark Stosberg Alexander Hartmaier
229 Jonathan Swartz Paul Miller
230 Trevor Schellhorn Anthony Ettinger
231 Jim Miner Simon P. Ditner
232 Paul Lindner Michael Peters
233 Maurice Aubrey Trevor Schellhorn
234 Andrew Creer
235 Thanks!
237
239 TJ Mather, tjmather@maxmind.com
240
242 This software is copyright (c) 2000 by TJ Mather, tjmather@maxmind.com.
243 This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
245 the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
246perl v5.36.0 2023-01-20 HTML::FillInForm(3)