Generic HTML Form Processor: A versatile PHP script to save Web-collected data into a MySQL database

In the last decade, the execution of experiments and sur-

veys via the World-Wide Web has become an established

method (see Birnbaum, 2001, 2004a, 2004b; Kraut et al.,

2004). Several reviews have concluded that the quality

of data achieved in online studies can be comparable to,

and sometimes better than, that obtained by more tradi-

tional methods involving a lab, paper questionnaires, or

telephone interviews (Birnbaum, 2001; Krantz & Dalal,

2000; McGraw, Tew, & Williams, 2000).

There are other advantages of Web research. On the

Web, people can be tested at any time and place, labora-

tory rooms or physically present experimenters are not

necessary (so experimenter effects remain constant), and

automated data handling reduces both the labor and error

of data coding and entry (Birnbaum & Reips, 2005; Göritz

& Schumacher, 2000). In addition, the Web method al-

lows one to collect large samples inexpensively, which

makes it possible to draw clear conclusions and to check

their generality to different subsamples tested (Birnbaum,

1999; Reips, 2002).

An example of an HTML Web form is given in Birn-

baum (2000). Such an HTML page can be placed on a

server, where the participant can view it and fill in answers

by typing in information and clicking on choices. When

the participant is finished, he or she can then click on a

button to send the data. Birnbaum’s (2000) surveyWiz and

factorWiz are freely available programs that make it easy

to create HTML forms for simple surveys and within-

subjects factorial experiments. Reips and Neuhaus (2002)

have developed WEXTOR, which is useful for generat-

ing Web experiments that utilize (for instance) between-

subjects factorial designs with multiple pages for different

conditions.

Sending Data From an HTML Form

There are three methods of receiving data that have been

collected through an HTML form. The first method is to

use the “get” method and extract the form input from the

server log files (see Birnbaum & Reips, 2005).

A second

method is to have the form data e-mailed to the researcher.

This can be done by means of the HTML form’s action

attribute—for example,

form action“mailto:you@your.domain.net”

method“post” enctype“text/plain”.

However, some systems refuse such an action attribute

if, for example, no e-mail client is set up (as might be

the case for, e.g., computers in a public library). More-

over, some browsers issue a more or less draconian alert,

which the participant has to confirm for the data to be

e-mailed. Most problematic for large efforts, though, is

the fact that each submission generates its own e-mail,

so data need to be extracted from thousands of individual

e-mails and merged into one data file. Thus, whereas the

e-mail method might be useful during testing of a form

This work was supported by a University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

postdoctoral scholarship (HWP) and by National Science Foundation

Grants SES-9986436 and BCS-0129453. Correspondence concerning this

article should be addressed to A. S. Göritz, Organizational and Social

Psychology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Lange Gasse 20, 90403

Nuremberg, Germany (e-mail: [email protected]).

Generic HTML Form Processor:

A versatile PHP script to save Web-collected data

into a MySQL database

ANJA S. GÖRITZ

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Nuremberg, Germany

and

MICHAEL H. BIRNBAUM

California State University, Fullerton, California

The customizable PHP script Generic HTML Form Processor is intended to assist researchers and

students in quickly setting up surveys and experiments that can be administered via the Web. This

script relieves researchers from the burdens of writing new CGI scripts and building databases for

each Web study. Generic HTML Form Processor processes any syntactically correct HTML form input

and saves it into a dynamically created open-source database. We describe five modes for usage of the

script that allow increasing functionality but require increasing levels of knowledge of PHP and Web

servers: The first two modes require no previous knowledge, and the fifth requires PHP programming

expertise. Use of Generic HTML Form Processor is free for academic purposes, and its Web address

is www.goeritz.net/brmic.

Behavior Research Methods

2005, 37 (4), 703-710

704 GÖRITZ AND BIRNBAUM

or for small efforts like obtaining RSVPs to a party, the

method is not practical for large research projects.

The third method is to use server-side CGI (“common

gateway interface”) scripts to process and save the form

data. In this case, the action attribute of a Web form sends

the form’s data to a CGI script that is located on a Web server

(Schmidt, 1997, 2000). An example of such an attribute is

form action“http://your.domain.net/script.php”

method“post”.

Thus, use of CGI requires the researcher to have access to

a CGI-enabled directory on a Web server.

There are several benefits of using a CGI script: First,

the CGI can process the data and save them in a file for-

mat ready for analysis. Order bias can be eliminated by

presenting items and alternative answers in random order,

and the CGI can reorganize the data. Also, skip patterns

can be incorporated into questionnaires. In addition, par-

ticipants’ input can be validated in real time; for example,

data errors can be detected and respondents pointed to

omitted items (Göritz & Schumacher, 2000).

CGI scripts can be written in any language that a given

server can execute, such as ASP (“active server pages”),

Perl (“practical extraction and report language”), or PHP

(“hypertext preprocessor”). PHP is an increasingly popu-

lar scripting language (see www.php.net/usage.php). As

with Perl, PHP interpreters are open-source, free, and

available for many different platforms. One can check the

availability of PHP for one’s own platform and download a

suitable installation package from the Downloads section

of the PHP home at www.php.net.

Run Your Own Server With

Apache, PHP, and MySQL

There are many advantages to running your own server

(Birnbaum & Reips, 2005; Schmidt, Hoffman, & Mac-

Donald, 1997). You can configure the most common Web

servers to work with PHP. You can install PHP on a server

by following the installation instructions that come with

the downloaded package. In most cases, PHP is installed

on the same server where the HTML forms reside, but it

can also be installed on any other server where the data are

to be saved. Apache is a powerful, widespread, and flex-

ible open-source Web server. Apache’s Web server comes

already installed in new Macintosh computers, as are Perl

and PHP, and is freely available for PCs and almost any

other platform from www.apache.org.

There are two options for how a PHP script can store

the data from the HTML form. One simple method is to

have the script save the form data into a text file that is

located on the server. For example, this might be a comma

separated values (CSV) file. After all data have been col-

lected, the file can be read into a spreadsheet or statistical

application.

However, if participants’ input at some stage of the

research needs to be used dynamically to determine the

next question, or if the questionnaire consists of more than

one HTML form, it is advisable to have one’s PHP script

save the form data into a database. The advantage of the

database is that it can store information about the partici-

pant, make computations on those data, and dynamically

respond to the participant’s behavior. Using a database

allows the server to keep track of a participant who may

perform many tasks over a period of time.

Servers can use various database applications, includ-

ing Oracle, MS Access, and MySQL. We recommend

MySQL because it is an open-source, free, compact, fast,

reliable, robust, and multiuser database server that com-

piles on many platforms. Its home page is www.mysql

.com. MySQL databases can easily be administered with

the free tool MySQL Control Center (now succeeded by

MySQL Administrator), which can also be downloaded

from www.mysql.com.

The installation and configuration details of the PHP

interpreter, Apache, MySQL, and MySQL Control Center

are beyond the scope of this article. However, plenty of rel-

evant information can be found on the Web. For example,

there is an introductory tutorial on PHP, Apache, MySQL,

and MySQL Control Center by the first author, which can

be downloaded from www.goeritz.net/ati/. Moreover, with

precompiled binaries available, installation has nowadays

become fairly easy. Less experienced users might want

to install an automatically configuring all-in-one bundle

containing Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Searching the Web

will locate many sites from which such a bundle can be

downloaded.

To sum up, a powerful way of collecting data from

HTML forms is to have the data sent to a CGI script, which

processes the input and writes the processed data into a da-

tabase. The most cost-effective way of accomplishing this

is to use free, open-source software. We recommend the

combination of an Apache server to host your Web site,

PHP for CGI scripting, and MySQL for the database.

A Generic HTML Form Processor in PHP

A versatile PHP script called Generic HTML Form Pro-

cessor has been developed that processes any syntactically

correct input from HTML forms. It is available, along

with sample HTML forms, from www.goeritz.net/brmic.

The script creates “on the fly” a MySQL database con-

taining one data table. In the table, the script dynamically

sets up columns for all submitted HTML input fields and

saves the data in the previously created columns. Thus,

this script relieves researchers of the burdens of writing a

CGI script and building a database to store their data for

each new project. To run a survey or experiment, research-

ers merely have to complete the relatively simple task of

creating HTML forms that fit their needs. There are many

commercial and noncommercial HTML editors available

that can assist the researcher with this task. For example,

one of the two free programs surveyWiz and factorWiz

(Birnbaum, 2000) might be used. The following versions

have been written to automatically include the proper link

to the script described in this article:

psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/programs/

surveyWiz4.htm

GENERIC HTML FORM PROCESSOR 705

and

psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/programs/

factorWizRB4.htm.

Besides the basic functionalities of creating a database

and saving the form input into this database, Generic

HTML Form Processor can point respondents to omit-

ted questions in the HTML form. Also, the researcher can

choose whether the HTML input will be written into the

database in chronological or alphanumeric order. More-

over, the wording of feedback messages to participants

(e.g., the text to be displayed upon omission of an item or

the thank-you message that appears after submission of

the questionnaire) can be customized. To enable the iden-

tification of multiple submissions (i.e., most likely sub-

missions from the same IP address within a short period of

time) and of nonserious participants (e.g., those who filled

out the questionnaire too fast or too slowly), the date, IP

address, and browser information are logged, along with

the submission time stamps of each questionnaire page.

The script supports both one-page and multipage ques-

tionnaires. Researchers with access to a PHP-enabled Web

server with MySQL can use Generic HTML Form Proces-

sor on their own server at no cost. They are also free to

further customize the script. Researchers without access

to a server can use Generic HTML Form Processor and a

MySQL database on a dedicated server at the first author’s

university.

As a result of this spectrum of possible usage, we will

now describe five modes of use that require different lev-

els of knowledge of PHP and server issues.

1. The easiest mode for using Generic HTML Form Pro-

cessor is with one-page HTML questionnaires designed to

save data on a server at the first author’s university. For

this purpose, no knowledge of PHP and Web servers is re-

quired. The only preparation necessary is to set the action

attribute of your HTML form to the URL (Internet ad-

dress) of Generic HTML Form Processor. The HTML file

itself can reside on any server. Let us look at an example

HTML form called sample.htm. It contains most of the

existing HTML input field types (see Figure 1).

The HTML code of sample.htm can be found in List-

ing 1. Note the action attribute in the form tag

form method“post” action“http://www.goeritz

.net/brmic/generic.php”,

which is printed in bold in Listing 1.

To use the script on our server, leave this line (the action

attribute) as it is. If you would like to have the order of

items or alternative answers in your HTML form random-

ized or rotated, you can use Birnbaum’s (2000) factor-

Wiz or include a special JavaScript program (Birnbaum

& Wakcher, 2002).

To obtain your study data from our server, call up the

display script display_generic.php by typing the URL

www.goeritz.net/brmic/display_generic.php in your

Figure 1. Browser view of example one-page HTML form sample.htm.

706 GÖRITZ AND BIRNBAUM

browser and hitting return. Next, read the instructions on

this page and enter the URL of your HTML survey in the

appropriate box. When you press the button, all data sets

belonging to your study are output either as Excel files or

in tab-delimited format. Once you have fetched your data,

you can clean from them your own test runs as well as

any multiple submissions. For more information on data

analysis and filtering of multiple submissions, see Birn-

baum (2001).

Please note that 3-month-old records are automatically

deleted from this public database. Thus, make sure to re-

trieve your data in time. Furthermore, researchers intend-

ing to collect sensitive data (which should by no means

be accessible to strangers) should use a script on their

own server (see Modes 3–5 described below). Moreover,

because of the public nature of this database, only up to

1,000 records and 70 unique HTML input fields per study

are saved. If you plan a study larger than that, you are

requested to use the script on your own server.

2. The second mode consists of using Generic HTML

Form Processor with a multipage HTML questionnaire

on the server at the first author’s university. This also re-

quires no knowledge of PHP or server issues. However,

you would have to make a few more changes in your

HTML forms, as follows: First, as in the previous mode,

you need to set the action attribute of each of the HTML

forms to the URL of Generic HTML Form Processor. Sec-

ond, to tell the script which HTML page it needs to call

up after processing the previous page, one extra line of

HTML code must be inserted within the form tags. This

line defines the hidden variable next_page and its value,

which is the location of the next HTML page. An example

is shown below in which sample2.htm is in the same Web

folder as Generic HTML Form Processor:

input type“hidden” name“next_page”

value“sample2.htm”.

Alternatively, if the next page were called “page_two.html,”

this line would read

input type“hidden” name“next_page”

value“page_two.html”.

If the next survey page were located on another server or

not within the same directory as the first page, the value

should be set to the absolute URL of the second page—for

example,

input type“hidden” name“next_page”

value“http://full_path_on_server.net/pagename

.htm”.

Let us inspect an example survey that consists of three

HTML pages. The first page is sample1.htm (see the

source code in Listing 2 and the browser view in Figure 2),

the second is sample2.htm, and the third is sample3.htm.

To track individual participants across the pages of a

multipage survey, a unique identifier needs to be passed

from page to page. This is automatically accomplished by

extracting an identifier for each participant (called op56)

from the database and appending it to the query string

of the next survey page—for example, www.goeritz.net/

brmic/generic2.htm?op5616&nr931.

The other transmitted variable, nr93, tells Generic

HTML Form Processor which page of a multipage survey

it is dealing with. With the help of JavaScript, these two

variables are extracted from the query string and inserted

into the HTML form as hidden variables. Therefore, for

each page of a multipage survey except the first, a Java-

Script snippet (see the bold print in the sample2.htm

source code in Listing 3) needs to be pasted within the

form tags.

Figure 3 depicts the browser view of the HTML file

sample2.htm.

On the third page of our multipage study, sample3.htm,

the researcher again needs to paste the JavaScript snippet

between the form tags, but inclusion of the hidden vari-

able next_page is no longer necessary, because sample3

.htm is the last page of the survey (see the source code in

Listing 4).

Figure 4 depicts the browser view of the HTML file

sample3.htm.

Again, the script creates a MySQL database called

“generic” with results table “generic.” Because now there

are three HTML pages, the names and submission time

stamps of pages 2 and 3 are recorded as well (see Fig-

ure 5). Retrieval of the survey data follows the same pro-

cedure described for the one-page case.

For implementing skip patterns in your survey, there

are three options. The first method requires only HTML

and is illustrated at the following URL: www.goeritz.net/

brmic/gender.htm. Both other methods use JavaScript.

First, the skip pattern might be included within the same

page of a survey (e.g., by having JavaScript display an ad-

ditional item or response option if a particular answer has

been selected prior to that). For example, if a respondent

indicated having had a particular experience, an additional

item could come up that would ask the respondent to de-

Figure 2. Browser view of example HTML form sample1.htm.

GENERIC HTML FORM PROCESSOR 707

scribe this experience in more detail. The third option (and

the second requiring JavaScript) would be to display any

contingent material on a consecutive page. As an example,

look at the source code of the HTML file sample1a.htm

in Listing 5. This is a modified version of sample1.htm,

with the bold text added. If in sample1a.htm a participant

indicated that she was female, she would be directed to

the interposed page sampleextra.htm instead of directly

to the page sample2.htm (not shown here, but you can see

this example as well as others in action at www.goeritz

.net/brmic).

The same method can also be used for randomization of

survey pages. For this purpose, a JavaScript snippet could

draw an element of an array at random. The next page dis-

played would be contingent on the element selected.

3. The third mode involves using Generic HTML Form

Processor with a one-page HTML questionnaire on an ac-

cessible server with PHP and MySQL. First, download

Generic HTML Form Processor from www.goeritz.net/

brmic and extract it onto your server in a suitable directory.

To customize the script’s behavior, follow the guidelines

in the script. Alter the action attribute in your HTML form

to the location of the script on your server—for example,

form method“post” action“http://My.domain

.net/MyFolder/generic.php”.

The first time the HTML form is submitted, the script

creates a MySQL database called “generic” with a results

table also called “generic.” Data may be retrieved from

your MySQL database either by running a

SELECT syntax

command or with the help of a graphical administration

tool such as MySQL Control Center.

Note that for the script to function properly, the re-

searcher needs

ALTER, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, and CRE-

AT E privileges for MySQL. If the researcher wishes to use

a public server, he or she might not have some of these

privileges, because it is a security hazard to allocate global

ALTER privileges to any user (in this case the researcher).

There are three ways of dealing with this: (1) The re-

searcher may ask the server administrator to create a

minimal MySQL database with one table in it (this should

take less than 1 min) and to allocate the relevant privileges

only for the single table within this database. There is no

security risk involved in that. (2) Since the

ALTER privi-

leges are needed only once—namely, to define all possible

columns in the MySQL database—the researcher may ask

the server administrator to grant him or her

ALTER privi-

leges for 10 min only. In this interval, the researcher can

fill out all input fields on all pages of the questionnaire

with practice data and submit it.

(3) The researcher can

set up his or her own server and grant him- or herself the

needed privileges for this step.

4. The fourth mode involves using Generic HTML

Form Processor with a multipage HTML questionnaire on

a server to which you have access. First, put the script on

your server and, if desired, customize it. You will need to

alter your HTML forms as described above for Mode 2.

5. Finally, you are free to further customize Generic

HTML Form Processor to your particular needs—for

example, by implementing a more sophisticated input

validation. Learning PHP will allow you to completely

customize your study.

In summary, our versatile PHP script Generic HTML

Form Processor can assist researchers and students in

quickly setting up surveys and experiments that can be ad-

ministered via the Web. The script accomplishes the CGI

Figure 3. Browser view of example HTML form sample2.htm.

Figure 4. Browser view of example HTML form sample3.htm.

708 GÖRITZ AND BIRNBAUM

scripting for coding and storing Web-collected data in a

database. The strengths of Generic HTML Form Proces-

sor are its universality and simplicity of use. It processes

any data input from an HTML form and saves it into a

dynamically created open-source database. The script

also allows the processing and recording of the data to be

further customized. Researchers with access to a PHP-

enabled Web server with MySQL can use Generic HTML

Form Processor on their own server, and researchers with-

out access to a server can use the script and a database on

our server. Use of the script is free for noncommercial

academic purposes.

REFERENCES

Birnbaum, M. H. (1999). Testing critical properties of decision making

on the Internet. Psychological Science, 10, 399-407.

Birnbaum, M. H. (2000). SurveyWiz and factorWiz: JavaScript Web

pages that make HTML forms for research on the Internet. Behavior

Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 32, 339-346.

Birnbaum, M. H. (2001). Introduction to behavioral research on the

Internet. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Birnbaum, M. H. (2004a). Human research and data collection via the

Internet. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 803-832.

Birnbaum, M. H. (2004b). Methodological and ethical issues in con-

ducting social psychology research via the Internet. In C. Sansone,

C. C. Morf, & A. T. Panter (Eds.), The Sage handbook of methods in

social psychology (pp. 359-382). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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handbook of human factors in Web design (pp. 471-492). Mahwah,

NJ: Erlbaum.

Birnbaum, M. H., & Wakcher, S. V. (2002). Web-based experiments

controlled by JavaScript: An example from probability learning. Be-

havior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 34, 189-199.

Göritz, A. S., & Schumacher, J. (2000). The WWW as a research

medium: An illustrative survey on paranormal belief. Perceptual &

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Krantz, J. H., & Dalal, R. S. (2000). Validity of Web-based psycho-

logical research. In M. H. Birnbaum (Ed.), Psychological experiments

on the Internet (pp. 35-60). San Diego: Academic Press.

Kraut, R., Olson, J., Banaji, M., Bruckman, A., Cohen, J., &

Couper, M. (2004). Psychological research online: Report of Board

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the Internet. American Psychologist, 59, 105-117.

McGraw, K. O., Tew, M. D., & Williams, J. E. (2000). The integrity

of Web-delivered experiments: Can you trust the data? Psychological

Science, 11, 502-506.

Reips, U.-D. (2002). Internet-based psychological experimenting: Five

dos and five don’ts. Social Science Computer Review, 20, 241-249.

Reips, U.-D., & Neuhaus, C. (2002). WEXTOR: A Web-based tool for

generating and visualizing experimental designs and procedures. Be-

havior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 34, 234-240.

Schmidt, W. C. (1997). World-Wide Web survey research: Benefits,

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Schmidt, W. C. (2000). The ser

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NOTES

1. For example, the form tag might appear as follows:

form method“get” action“http://psych.fullerton.edu/

mbirnbaum/thanks.htm”,

where the action directs the user to a “thank you” page for the study.

For more information on this method, see Birnbaum and Reips

(2005).

2. JavaScript is a client-side scripting language. That is, it runs in

the participant’s browser. Details on JavaScript programming are be-

yond the scope of this article, but more information can be found at

psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/brmic. In addition, there are plenty

of free JavaScript snippets for this purpose available for download

on the World-Wide Web.

3. If a participant altered bits of the query string in “opt56

XY&nr93XY” by hand, he or she could not access other partici-

pants’ data and the functioning of the script would in no way be

impaired, because the JavaScript snippet in the called-up page ex-

tracts information from the query string before a participant could

interfere with it.

If a respondent in a multipage study had JavaScript disabled, a new

record would be added to the database for each page instead of the

respondent’s entire session being written in one line. With the help of

the data that supplement each record (i.e., URL of the survey page,

date, time, IP address, and browser), a researcher could then recon-

struct these sessions after data collection was over. That is, he or she

could manually merge different lines for the same person into one

line. Most of the (somewhat varying) statistics on JavaScript support

indicate that 1%–10% of Web users have JavaScript disabled.

4. This procedure would have to be repeated for each new survey

project, because the HTML input fields used will likely differ from

one project to another.

Figure 5. Sample table with results from a three-page survey.

GENERIC HTML FORM PROCESSOR 709

LISTING 1

sample.htm

htmlheadtitleSurvey/title/headbody

Please answer the following questions:brbr

form methodⴝ“post” actionⴝ“http://www.goeritz.net/brmic/generic.php”

How old are you?input type“text” name“age” size“2” maxlength“3”

brbrWhat is your sex?br

input type“radio” name“sex” value“1”femalebr

input type“radio” name“sex” value“2”male

brbrWhat is the highest level of education you have completed?br

select name“education”

option value“0” selectedChoose from this list

option value“1”Less than 12 years

option value“2”Graduated High School (12 y

ears education)



option value“3”Some College (13-15 years education)

option value“4”Graduated from College (Bachelor’s degree)

option value“5”Master’s degree

option value“6”Doctoral Degree (Ph.D., M.D., J.D., etc.)

/selectbrbrEnter your comments here:br

textarea name“comment” cols“21” rows“4”/textareabrbr

input type“submit” value“Submit Questionnaire”

/form/body/html

LISTING 2

sample1.htm

htmlheadtitleSurvey Page 1/title/headbody

Please answer the following questions:brbr

form method“post” action“http://www.goeritz.net/brmic/generic.php”

input typeⴝ“hidden” nameⴝ“next_page” valueⴝ“sample2.htm”

How old are you?input type“text” name“age” size“2” maxlength“3”

brbrWhat is your sex?br

input type“radio” name“sex” value“1”femalebr

input type“radio” name“sex” value“2”malebrbr

input type“submit” value“Go to next page”

/form/body/html

LISTING 3

sample2.htm

htmlheadtitleSurvey Page 2/title/headbodybr

form method“post” action“http://www.goeritz.net/brmic/generic.php”

input type“hidden” name“next_page” value“sample3.htm”

script languageⴝ“JavaScript” typeⴝ“text/javascript”

var qsⴝlocation.search.substring(1);

var nvⴝqs.split(‘&’);

var urlⴝnew Object();

for(iⴝ0; inv.length; iⴙⴙ)

{eqⴝnv[i].indexOf(‘ⴝ’);

url[nv[i].substring(0,eq).toLowerCase()]ⴝunescape(nv[i].substring(eqⴙ1)); }

document.write(‘input typeⴝ“hidden” nameⴝ“identification” valueⴝ“‘ⴙurl[“op56”]ⴙ’”

input typeⴝ“hidden” nameⴝ“counter” valueⴝ“‘ⴙurl[“nr93”]ⴙ’”’);

/script

What is the highest level of education you have completed?br

select name“education”

option v

alue

“0” selectedChoose from this list

option value“1”Less than 12 years

option value“2”Graduated High School (12 years education)

option value“3”Some College (13-15 years education)

option value“4”Graduated from College (Bachelor’s degree)

option value“5”Master’s degree

option value“6”Doctoral Degree (Ph.D., M.D., J.D., etc.)

/selectbrbr

input type“submit” value“Go to last page”

/form/body/html

710 GÖRITZ AND BIRNBAUM

LISTING 4

sample3.htm

htmlheadtitleSurvey Page 3/title/headbody

form method“post” action“http://www.goeritz.net/brmic/generic.php”

script language“JavaScript” type“text/javascript”

var qslocation.search.substring(1);

var nvqs.split(‘&’);

var urlnew Object();

for(i0; inv.length; i)

{eqnv[i].indexOf(‘’);

url[nv[i].substring(0,eq).toLowerCase()]unescape(nv[i].substring(eq1)); }

document.write(‘input type“hidden” name“identification” value“‘url[“op56”]’”

input type“hidden” name“counter” value“‘url[“nr93”]’”’);

/script

Enter your comments here:br

textarea name“comment” cols“21” rows“4”/textareabrbr

input type“submit” v

alue

“Submit questionnaire”brbr

/form/body/html

LISTING 5

sample1a.htm

htmlheadtitleSurvey Page 1/title

script languageⴝ“JavaScript” typeⴝ“text/javascript”

function branch1()

{document.form1.next_page.valueⴝ‘sampleextra.htm’;}

function branch2()

{document.form1.next_page.valueⴝ‘sample2.htm’;}

/script

/head

bodyPlease answer the following questions:brbr

form nameⴝ“form1” method“post” action“http://www.goeritz.net/brmic/generic.php”

input type“hidden” name“next_page” value“sample2.htm”

How old are you?input type“text” name“age” size“2” maxlength“3”

brbrWhat is your sex?br

input type“radio” name“sex” value“1” onClickⴝ“branch1()”femalebr

input type“radio” name“sex” value“2” onClickⴝ“br

anch2()”

male

brbrinput type“submit” value“Go to next page”

/form/body/html

(Manuscript received May 28, 2004;

revision accepted for publication January 5, 2005.)