PHP Form Validation Demo

General

This project demonstrates a basic, server-side form handling system built with PHP. It presents a standards-compliant HTML5 form and performs server-side validation for the following user inputs:

• Email – must be a valid email address
• Username – 6–10 characters, alphanumeric only
• Password – must contain at least one lowercase letter, one uppercase letter, and one number
• Gender – selectable from predefined options: male, female, non-binary, other

Key Features

• Robust server-side validation using PHP and Laravel validation tools
• Form repopulation on validation failure, except for the password field which remains blank for security
• Successful submissions are logged using Monolog
• Composer-managed dependencies for clean project organization
• Object-based data source in place of a database
• Bootstrap styling for a modern UI

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Setup Instructions

This project was built using Laravel v10.3.3 and PHP v8.2.0.

⚠️ While the application does not use a database for storing user data, Laravel requires a valid database connection to perform POST requests.

To run the project:

1. Ensure PHP, Composer, and Laravel are installed.
2. Create a local .env file and set up a dummy database named dev (no tables needed).
3. Run database migration if necessary:

   php artisan migrate

4. Launch the application

   php artisan serve
   

Design Considerations

The focus of this project was to demonstrate clean, structured development in a PHP environment. Rather than using client-side validation, all validation is handled on the server to reinforce best practices for secure data handling.

Styling is kept lightweight with Bootstrap for a responsive and user-friendly interface. Logging is handled through Monolog, integrated via Composer, to persist successful submissions in a clean, readable format.

Challenges

One challenge encountered was with Laravel's Validator::make() behavior—it was not displaying validation errors on the form as expected. Due to time constraints, a workaround was implemented that logs all submissions (regardless of success or failure). While not ideal, this ensured the logging system remained functional and testable.