php-doc-en/features/xforms.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<chapter xml:id="features.xforms" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
 <title>Dealing with XForms</title>
 <para>
  <link xlink:href="&url.xforms;">XForms</link> defines a variation on traditional
  webforms which allows them to be used on a wider variety of platforms and 
  browsers or even non-traditional media such as PDF documents.
 </para>
 <para>
  The first key difference in XForms is how the form is sent to the client.
  <link xlink:href="&url.xforms.htmlauthors;"><literal>XForms for HTML Authors</literal></link>
  contains a detailed description of how to create XForms, for the purpose
  of this tutorial we'll only be looking at a simple example.
 </para>
 <example>
  <title>A simple XForms search form</title>
  <programlisting role="html">
<![CDATA[
<h:html xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
        xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms">
<h:head>
 <h:title>Search</h:title>
 <model>
  <submission action="http://example.com/search"
              method="post" id="s"/>
 </model>
</h:head>
<h:body>
 <h:p>
  <input ref="q"><label>Find</label></input>
  <submit submission="s"><label>Go</label></submit>
 </h:p>
</h:body>
</h:html>
]]>
  </programlisting>
 </example>
 <para>
  The above form displays a text input box (named <parameter>q</parameter>),
  and a submit button.  When the submit button is clicked, the form will be
  sent to the page referred to by <literal>action</literal>.
 </para>
 <para>
  Here's where it starts to look different from your web application's point
  of view.  In a normal HTML form, the data would be sent as 
  <literal>application/x-www-form-urlencoded</literal>, in the XForms world
  however, this information is sent as <acronym>XML</acronym> formatted data.
 </para>
 <para>
  If you're choosing to work with XForms then you probably want that data as
  <acronym>XML</acronym>, in that case, look in <varname>$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA</varname> where
  you'll find the <acronym>XML</acronym> document generated by the browser which you can pass
  into your favorite <acronym>XSLT</acronym> engine or document parser.
 </para>
 <para>
  If you're not interested in formatting and just want your data to be loaded
  into the traditional <varname>$_POST</varname> variable, you can instruct
  the client browser to send it as <literal>application/x-www-form-urlencoded</literal>
  by changing the <parameter>method</parameter> attribute to
  <emphasis>urlencoded-post</emphasis>.
 </para>
 <example>
  <title>Using an XForm to populate <varname>$_POST</varname></title>
  <programlisting role="html">
<![CDATA[
<h:html xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
        xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms">
<h:head>
 <h:title>Search</h:title>
 <model>
  <submission action="http://example.com/search"
              method="urlencoded-post" id="s"/>
 </model>
</h:head>
<h:body>
 <h:p>
  <input ref="q"><label>Find</label></input>
  <submit submission="s"><label>Go</label></submit>
 </h:p>
</h:body>
</h:html>
]]>
  </programlisting>
 </example>
 <note>
  <simpara>
   As of this writing, many browsers do not support XForms.
   Check your browser version if the above examples fails.
  </simpara>
 </note>
</chapter>

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