assgar 14 Junior Poster in Training

Hello
First sorry if there is to much code in this example.
I am new to working with multi page forms.
I have a search form that gets preloaded info from the database.
There are 3 scripts (a html page, a preload script and a process script).
There is a search button and a submit button.
The user can alter this information.
If the user alters the preloaded infomation and then does a search
I want the altered information to be displayed along with the search results.
Note: the same search page reloads with the search results.
1) Should I use the hidden input script to hold the altered information?
2) Where should I place the hidden input script, on the form or the preload
script?
Note:I tried putting the hidden input script in preload.php
so I can use an if to determine if their is hidden info to pass
or pass the info from the database. But I could could not get that to work

It would be great if you could please show your suggestion.

Hidden input

if($_POST['fname']) $fname = $_POST['fname']; 
echo ("input type = 'hidden' name='fname' value ='" .$fname ."'>\n");

Preload script

<?php
/** preload.php**/
  $spec_q ="select fname, lname, service_date
      from customer
           where customer_num = $customer";
  $result = mysqli_query ($mysqli, $spec_q);
  while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
    {
  
   list($fname, $lname, $service_date) = $row;
   list($ser_year_c, $a_month_c, $c_day_c)= split("-",$service_date);
    }
 ?>

Html page

<?php
/** search_form.php **/
 include("preload.php");//preload first and last name and service date
?>
<html>
<form  action="search_edprocess.php" method="post">
<table>
<tr>
<!---------------------customer  name--------------------->
  <td colspan="2" align="left"><font face = "arial" font size = "3px"><b>
     
    <input type="text" name="first_name" size="15" maxlength="20" value ="<?php echo $lname; ?>"/>
    <input type="text" name="last_name" size="15" maxlength="20" value ="<?php echo $fname; ?>"/>
    
    echo "$lname, $first"; //patient last name and org_patient_id
      
   </b></font></td>
<!-------------------date of service--------------------->
 <td colspan="2">
 
   <input type="text" name="service_yr" size="4" maxlength="5" value ="<?php echo $service_yr; ?>"/>
<!-------------------service date month dropdown---------------------->
  <select name="service_month">
    <?php
 $month_name = get_a_month_name($a_month_n);
 $month_code = get_a_month_code($a_month_c);
   for($n = 1; $n<= 13; $n++)
    {
  $month=$month_name[$n];
  $mcode=$month_code[$n];
   echo "<option value = '$mcode'";
 if ($mcode == " ")
    {
       echo "selected"; 
    }
    echo ">$month \n";
  }
    ?>
    </select>
 
  <!-------------------service date day dropdown---------------------->
  <select name="service_day">
    <?php
        $day_name = get_c_day_name($c_day_n);
        $day_code = get_c_day_code($c_day_c);
        for ($n = 1; $n<= 32; $n++)
          {
             $day = $day_name[$n];
             $dcode = $day_code[$n];
             echo "<option value = '$dcode'";
             if ($dcode == " ")
               {
                   echo "selected";
               }
           echo ">$day \n";
          }
    ?>
   </select>
   </td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>
          <!---------------------search box ------------------->
 Search for:
 <input type="text" name="find" /> 
   </td>
      <td ><input type="hidden" name="searching" value="yes" />
            <input type="submit" name="f_button" value="Search" />
      </td>
   </tr>
 </table>
 </html>

Process script

<?php
 
  /**search_edprocess.php**/
  
 $first_name  = strip_tags(trim($_POST['first_name']));
 $last_name  = strip_tags(trim($_POST['last_name']));
  
 //year of service 
 $service_yr = strip_tags(trim($_POST['service_yr']));
 $service_yr = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s,.]+/","",$service_yr);
  
 $find = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s,.]+/", " ", $find);
  
 //month of service
 $service_month = trim($_POST['service_month']);
  
 //day of service
 $service_day = trim($_POST['service_day']);
  
 //year, month and day of service
 $service_date = $service_yr."-".$service_month."-".$service_day;
 
 /**** insert goes here****/
 if(($_POST['f_button'])= "Submit")
  
 /***find and submit bottons managed by switch**/
 switch ($_POST['f_button'])
    {
    
    }
 
  ?>