title: Storing form data with PHP Session
body: <p>I am working on an HTML form whose data would be saved on a failed submit, or page refresh.</p>
  
  <p>We are using a PHP Session to store this data, and we post the elements back when needed. </p>
  
  <p>The issue is that it's not working.  We need the form data to be preserved on a submit with errors, or page refresh.  Currently on a failed submit, or page refresh, there is no data being stored in the session.</p>
  
  <p>I'm fairly new to PHP, and most of this code is not mine, so go easy on me.</p>
  
  <p>The PHP Sumbit code being used is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Software: PHPMailer - PHP email class                                    
  Version: 5.0.2                                                          
  Contact: via sourceforge.net support pages (also www.codeworxtech.com)  
  Info: http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net                               
  Support: http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer/  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>SESSION: </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
  
  session_name("fancyform");
  session_start();
  
  $str='';
  if($_SESSION['errStr'])
  {
  $str='&lt;div class="error"&gt;'.$_SESSION['errStr'].'&lt;/div&gt;';
  unset($_SESSION['errStr']);
  }
  
  $success='';
  if($_SESSION['sent'])
  {
  $success='&lt;div class="message-sent"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Message was sent successfully. Thank you!  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;';
  
  $css='&lt;style type="text/css"&gt;#contact-form{display:none;}&lt;/style&gt;';
  
  unset($_SESSION['sent']);
  }
  ?&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>FORM:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;form id="contact-form" name="contact-form" method="post" action="submit.php"&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="name" id="name" class="validate[required]"     placeholder="Enter your first and last name here" value="&lt;?=$_SESSION['post']['name']?&gt;" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="email" id="email" class="validate[required,custom[email]]" placeholder="Enter your email address here" value="&lt;?=$_SESSION['post']['email']?&gt;" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="phone" id="phone" placeholder="Enter your phone number here" value="&lt;?=$_SESSION['post']['phone']?&gt;" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;
  &lt;select name="subject" id="subject"&gt;
  &lt;option&gt;What event service are you primarily interested in?&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option&gt;Event Creation&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option&gt;Project Management&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option&gt;Promotion&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;
  &lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;textarea name="message" id="message" class="validate[required]" placeholder="Please     include some details about your project or event..."&gt;&lt;?=$_SESSION['post']['message']?&gt;    &lt;/textarea&gt;
  &lt;input type="submit" value="" /&gt;
  &lt;/form&gt;
  </code></pre>