CGI::FormBuilder - Perl module for easily generating and processing forms

Support

Please see formbuilder.org for online docs and tutorials. In addition, there is a google discussion group for help and patches.

Installation

Use CPAN to install FormBuilder:

cpan CGI::FormBuilder

FormBuilder does not have any prerequisites; however, if you want to use templating support, you need to install one of:

HTML::Template
Text::Template
Template Toolkit
CGI::FastTemplate
CGI::SSI

Whichever you prefer to use.

Example

use CGI::FormBuilder;

# Assume we did a DBI query to get existing values
my $dbval = $sth->fetchrow_hashref;

# First create our form
my $form = CGI::FormBuilder->new(
                name     => 'acctinfo',
                method   => 'post',
                stylesheet => '/path/to/style.css',
                values   => $dbval,   # defaults
           );

# Now create form fields, in order
# FormBuilder will automatically determine the type for you
$form->field(name => 'fname', label => 'First Name');
$form->field(name => 'lname', label => 'Last Name');

# Setup gender field to have options
$form->field(name => 'gender',
             options => [qw(Male Female)] );

# Include validation for the email field
$form->field(name => 'email',
             size => 60,
             validate => 'EMAIL',
             required => 1);

# And the (optional) phone field
$form->field(name => 'phone',
             size => 10,
             validate => '/^1?-?\d{3}-?\d{3}-?\d{4}$/',
             comment  => '<i>optional</i>');

# Check to see if we're submitted and valid
if ($form->submitted && $form->validate) {
    # Get form fields as hashref
    my $field = $form->fields;

    # Do something to update your data (you would write this)
    do_data_update($field->{lname}, $field->{fname},
                   $field->{email}, $field->{phone},
                   $field->{gender});

    # Show confirmation screen
    print $form->confirm(header => 1);
} else {
    # Print out the form
    print $form->render(header => 1);
}

Patches/Additions

I'm aware that many Perl users are not familiar with git. This is ok. To submit a patch, just make changes to your local copy of FormBuilder and then create a unified diff:

cp FormBuilder.pm FormBuilder.pm.orig
vi FormBuilder.pm   # make changes
diff -u FormBuilder.pm.orig FormBuilder.pm >name_of_my_feature.diff

Then, just attach that diff to a github.com bug report (see below).

Bug Reports

Please use github issues for any FormBuilder bugs or features. You will probably get a better response if you start by posting a message to the google group. Any issues posted to the horrific rt.cpan.org site will be IGNORED or rejected without comment.

Author

This module is free software; you may copy this under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or the Artistic License, copies of which should have accompanied your Perl kit.

FormBuilder is maintained by a team of several, including Danny Liang, Wolfgang Radke, and Derek Wueppelmann. Your best bet for patches/support/etc is the google group.