Filling form with user entered values after submit

Question

How do I fill a custom form with the values entered from the users before the form was submitted? I have saved the $form_state values, but when I put them back into $form_state on loading, the form fields aren't filled.

Answer 1

Drupal 7

If you are not redirecting and want to preserve the values in the Form API fields add $form_state['rebuild'] = TRUE; on the submit handler.

/**
 * FORM submit handler.
 */
function FORM_form_submit($node, &$form_state) {
  // Rebuild the form and keep the filter values.
  $form_state['rebuild'] = TRUE;
}

---

Drupal 8

In Drupal 8 you would use $form_state-> setRebuild();

See public function FormState::setRebuild for more detail.

Custom submit handlers in Drupal 8 are dealt with differently — here is some useful discussion on Drupal 8 submit handlers.

Answer 2

I think you want to put them in $form['element_name']['#default_value'] not $form_state. What you're describing sounds odd, though. Why are you adding a user's information back into a form after they already entered it?

Answer 3

Values entered in a form should be validated in a form validation handler. When the validation handler finds values that are invalid, it should call form_error() or form_set_error(); in that case, the form would be presented back to the users with the values they entered. The only form field that is reset is the password form field, for which presenting the previously entered value would not have any sense, since the users would just see a string made of "•" (or the character that replaces the input used by the browser).

The purpose of form submission handlers is not to validate the entered values, but to save them, or using them to create the required output.

Answer 4

When form submit fails you must set $form_state['redirect'] to false. By default after submit form is reloaded and form fields cleared out. But when redirect is set to false form will not be redirected and form fields will remain filled.