How to stop form from sending email more times after initial success.

Question

Can someone please show me example code or specify what i am doing wrong as solutions below have not yielded much luck for me :(
I am working on a contact f

Answer 1

You need to properly redirect after the email is sent. I've been using the following code for years as part of a utility class. Unfortunately it's been copied and re-posted numerous times on the net, so I have no idea who actually created it.

// func: redirect($to,$code=307)
// spec: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html
// 301 Moved Permanently - Forget the old page existed
// 302 Found - Use the same method (GET/POST) to request the specified page.
// 303 See Other - Use GET to request the specified page. Use this to redirct after a POST.
// 307 Temporary Redirect - Good for response to POST.
// redirect('/')
// redirect("/my/page")
// redirect("http://www.foo.bar/page.htm",303)
// redirect("./index.php",307)
public function redirect($to,$code=307) {
    $location = null;
    $sn = $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'];
    $cp = dirname($sn);
    if (substr($to,0,4)=='http') $location = $to; // Absolute URL
    else {
        $schema = $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT']=='443'?'https':'http';
        $host = strlen($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'])?$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']:$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
        if (substr($to,0,1)=='/') $location = "$schema://$host$to";
        elseif (substr($to,0,1)=='.') {
            $location = "$schema://$host/";
            $pu = parse_url($to);
            $cd = dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']).'/';
            $np = realpath($cd.$pu['path']);
            $np = str_replace($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'],'',$np);
            $location.= $np;
            if ((isset($pu['query'])) && (strlen($pu['query'])>0)) $location.= '?'.$pu['query'];
        }
    }

    $hs = headers_sent();
    if ($hs==false) {
        if ($code==301) header("301 Moved Permanently HTTP/1.1"); // Convert to GET
        elseif ($code==302) header("302 Found HTTP/1.1"); // Conform re-POST
        elseif ($code==303) header("303 See Other HTTP/1.1"); // dont cache, always use GET
        elseif ($code==304) header("304 Not Modified HTTP/1.1"); // use cache
        elseif ($code==305) header("305 Use Proxy HTTP/1.1");
        elseif ($code==306) header("306 Not Used HTTP/1.1");
        elseif ($code==307) header("307 Temorary Redirect HTTP/1.1");
        else trigger_error("Unhandled redirect() HTTP Code: $code",E_USER_ERROR);
        header("Location: $location");
        header('Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
    }
    elseif (($hs==true) || ($code==302) || ($code==303)) {
        // todo: draw some javascript to redirect
        $cover_div_style = 'background-color: #ccc; height: 100%; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 100%;';
        echo "<div style='$cover_div_style'>\n";
        $link_div_style = 'background-color: #fff; border: 2px solid #f00; left: 0px; margin: 5px; padding: 3px; ';
        $link_div_style.= 'position: absolute; text-align: center; top: 0px; width: 95%; z-index: 99;';
        echo "<div style='$link_div_style'>\n";
        echo "<p>Please See: <a href='$to'>".htmlspecialchars($location)."</a></p>\n";
        echo "</div>\n</div>\n";
    }
    exit(0);
}

Answer 2

You should use the post/redirect/get pattern here.

Using this pattern advocates sending a redirect as a response from your form handling page, and as a result subsequent refreshes will not trigger these actions more than once.

From the documentation:

...instead of returning a web page directly, the POST operation returns a redirection command.

In pseudo-code, your handler page should have something like:

• Whatever initial handling code you have
• Send Email
• header("Location: /someotherpage");
• exit();