PHP contact form with MariaDB database storage
In this blog post, I'll show you how to create a PHP contact form that both sends the entered data via email and stores it in a MariaDB database. We'll walk you through the process step by step and include examples to help you get started.
Step 1: Create HTML form
First, you create a simple HTML form that collects user input:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>Kontaktformular</title> </head> <body> <h1>Kontaktformular</h1> <form action="kontaktformular.php" method="post"> <label for="name">Name:</label> <input type="text" name="name" id="name" required><br> <label for="email">E-Mail:</label> <input type="email" name="email" id="email" required><br> <label for="message">Nachricht:</label> <textarea name="message" id="message" required></textarea><br> <input type="submit" value="Senden"> </form> </body> </html>
Step 2: Create PHP script
Create a new file called contactform.php. In this file you write the PHP code that processes the form data and inserts it into the MariaDB database.
First, you establish a connection to the database:
<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "your_username";
$password = "your_password";
$dbname = "your_database";
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Verbindung fehlgeschlagen: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
Replace your_username, your_password and your_database with your own database credentials.
Next, you process the form data and insert it into the database:
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
$name = $_POST["name"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$message = $_POST["message"];
$sql = "INSERT INTO contact_form (name, email, message) VALUES (?, ?, ?)";
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bind_param("sss", $name, $email, $message);
if ($stmt->execute()) {
echo "Nachricht erfolgreich gesendet und in der Datenbank gespeichert.";
} else {
echo "Fehler: " . $sql . "<br>" . $conn->error;
}
$stmt->close();
}
$conn->close();
Replace contact_form with the name of your database table that will store the contact form data. Make sure that the table has columns for name, e-mail and message has.
Step 3: Send email
To send the entered data by email, add the following code to the PHP script before inserting the data into the database:
$to = "your_email@example.com";
$subject = "Neue Nachricht vom Kontaktformular";
$headers = "From: " . $email . "\r\n" .
"Reply-To: " . $email . "\r\n" .
"X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion();
if (mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)) {
echo "E-Mail erfolgreich gesendet.";
} else {
echo "E-Mail konnte nicht gesendet werden.";
}
Replace your_email@example.com with your own email address to which the messages should be sent.
Step 4: Add Google reCAPTCHA v2
To add Google reCAPTCHA v2 to your contact form, you must first register your website with Google reCAPTCHA to get a site key and secret key[2]. Then paste the reCAPTCHA code into your HTML form:
<head> <!-- Weitere Head-Elemente --> <script src="https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js" async defer></script> </head> <body> <!-- Kontaktformular --> <div class="g-recaptcha" data-sitekey="your_site_key"></div> </body>
Replace your_site_key with your own site key.
Step 5: reCAPTCHA validation in the PHP script
Paste the following code into your contactform.phpscript to validate the reCAPTCHA response before inserting the data into the database and sending the email:
if (isset($_POST['g-recaptcha-response'])) {
$captcha = $_POST['g-recaptcha-response'];
$secretKey = "your_secret_key";
$url = "https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify?secret=" . urlencode($secretKey) . "&response=" . urlencode($captcha);
$response = file_get_contents($url);
$responseKeys = json_decode($response, true);
if (!$responseKeys["success"]) {
echo "reCAPTCHA-Validierung fehlgeschlagen.";
exit;
}
}
Replace your_secret_key with your own secret key.
Step 6: Add honeypot field
A honeypot field is an invisible field that is filled in by bots but ignored by real users. Insert the following honeypot field into your HTML form:
<input type="text" name="honeypot" id="honeypot" style="display:none;">
Then paste the following code into your contactform.phpscript to check if the honeypot field has been filled in:
if (!empty($_POST["honeypot"])) {
// Honeypot-Feld wurde ausgefüllt, wahrscheinlich ein Bot
exit;
}
Complete!
Now you have a working PHP contact form that emails the entered data, stores it in a MariaDB database, and uses both Google reCAPTCHA v2 and a honeypot field for spam and bot defense. You can customize the form and PHP script as needed to add additional fields or functionality.
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