PHP contact form returning the PHP code when I press the submit button

Question

I created a contact form for my website. When I click the submit button, it just shows the PHP code instead of the message it is supposed to show, like the text information the user inputs into the form.

Here is the HTML code for the form:

<html>
    <link href="contact.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    <head>
        <title>Contact Us</title>
    </head>

    <body>
        <form action="contact.php" method="post">
            <div id="ContactForm">
                <fieldset>
                    <h4>Contact Parquest:</h4>

                    <label class="labelone" for="name">Name:</label>
                    <input name="name"/>

                    <label for="email">Email: </label>
                    <input name="email"email"/>

                    <label for="commens">Comments: </label>
                    <textarea name="commens"></textarea>
                </fieldset>
                <fieldset>
                    <input class="btn" type="submit" value="Send Email"/>
                    <input class="btn" type="reset" value="Reset Form"/>
                </fieldset>
        </form>
        </div>
</html>

I couldn't post the PHP code, because it just doesn't show when I try, so here's a screenshot:

You should include the CSS file inside the HEAD tags... though that isn't your problem.. What is 'contact.php' and where is it's source code? To include php code, put it into say Notepad++ and select all of it and add an extra indent (tab) so everything is indented at least once.. Then paste it here into SO.. Remember, you need 4 spaces to add the code formatting here. So if it broke your question, then you had something break the 4 spaces so SO didn't know it was code. — Wade
As another user stated, you have a typo ($commets = $_POST['comments']) which would throw an error when you echo $comments, since $comments is not declared. So my first hunch is you have error reporting turned off and your just getting a white screen. In development, your error reporting should be set to E_ALL so you can see all the errors to fix your code.. — Wade

catzilla catzilla · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-26T05:59:09

There is no problem to your code.. The problem is on your environment.. I guess you are not running the html file through a server..

If the url on your browser looks like these:

file:///c:/path/to/your/file/page.html

then you are doing it wrong.. in order to run .php scripts, you need a web server like apache or nginx... the url of should be like these

http://localhost/path/to/file/page.html

then the php file should run as expected..

php files are interpreted scripting language and thus it needs an interpreter in the server in order to run.. if it is just browsed in the browser without a server, it will just output the code inside..

PHP contact form returning the PHP code when I press the submit button

5 Answers