Re: HTML::FillInForm

[bradcathey]

Practical application of HTML::FillInForm, used in conjunction with my favorite templating module, HTML::Template, is not well documented anywhere that I could find. Here's my take.

My biggest use of HTML::FillInForm will be for re-populating, selecting, or checking all the input types in my forms when returning the form for the user to correct a validation error, or when calling up a DB record to be edited. The associate function in H::T only "remembers" text-type input, so to avoid lots of convoluted javascript and Perl, I found the ideal tool in HTML::FillInForm. I did consider using CGI's very own popup_menu feature, but I am trying to keep my HTML completely separate from my Perl.

Anyway, here are some methods I've discovered in experimenting with the two modules:

PERL:

my $q = new CGI; 
my $fvalues = $q -> Vars;  #get all the value pairs from the submitted
+ form

my $name = "Mr.". $q->param('name');  #alter one of them
$fvalues->{name} = $name;

my $template = HTML::Template->new( filename => "../form.tmpl");
my $html = $template->output;

my $form = new HTML::FillInForm;
my $page = $form->fill(scalarref => \$html,
                                     fdat        => $fvalues);

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print $page;

HTML:

<form action="./fill.pl" method="post">
   <input type="text" name="name" size="30" value="<tmpl_var name>" />
+<br />
   <input type="text" name="address" size="30" /><br />
            
   <select name="choices">
      <option value="">Select...</option>
      <option value="1">Ciara</option>
      <option value="2">Lauren</option>
      <option value="3">Brian</option>
   </select><br />
   <input type="submit">
</form>

Note: a value passed in the hash ref to fdat trumps assigning a value to a <tmpl_var> of the same name . So, this will not work:

my $fvalues = $q -> Vars;
my $name = "Mr.". $q->param('name');  #alter one of them

my $template = HTML::Template->new( filename => "../form.tmpl");
$template->param( name = $name );
my $html = $template->output;

However, this will:

my $fvalues = { address => '123 Main Street', choice => '2' };
#BTW, if the form tag is select with multiple attribute, use a referen
+ce to an array of the values:
#my @choices = (1, 3);
#$fifvalues->{'choices'} = \@choices;
my $name = "Mr.". $q->param('name');  #alter one of them

my $template = HTML::Template->new( filename => "../form.tmpl");
$template->param( name = $name );
my $html = $template->output;

The above example can be used to populate a new form, e.g., when pulling up a DB record for editing.