How do I print results after submitting a Drupal form?

Question

I have a simple Drupal Module setup which has a single textbox.

I can return what was typed in the textbox using drupal_set_message():

function firstmodule_form1_submit($form, &$form_state) {
    drupal_set_message(t("The user is $username"));
}

However echo $username; will not work for me, nothing is printed. How can I return results without using drupal_set_message()?

Answer 1

The normal way to handle this is to implement a multi-step workflow. See drupal_rebuild_form() for more information, but basically you set $form_state['rebuild'] = TRUE; in your submit handler, and in the original form function add a check to see if the form's been submitted. If it has, you have access to the submitted values and can manipulate the form as you see fit.

A very basic example:

function MYMODULE_some_form($form, &$form_state) {
  // If the form has been submitted, output something related to the submission
  if (!empty($form_state['values']['some_field'])) {
    $form['submission'] = array(
      '#markup' => function_to_get_markup_from_value($form_state['values']['some_field'])
    );
  }
  else {
    // Otherwise build the normal form
    $form['some_field'] = array(
      '#type' => 'textfield',
      // ...
    );
  }

  return $form;
}

function MYMODULE_some_form_submit($form, &$form_state) {
  $form_state['rebuild'] = TRUE;
}

Answer 2

A form submission handler can only print a message using drupal_set_message(), or writing a message in the log with watchdog().

The alternative is saving the necessary data in the session, and redirect the user (using $form_state['redirect'] = 'page path';) to a page where the content of the session is shown.

function firstmodule_menu() {
  $items['the path for your page'] = array(
    'page callback' => 'firstmodule_show_submitted_data';
    // ...
  );

  return $items;
}

function firstmodule_form1_submit($form, &$form_state) {
  $_SESSION['firstmodule_username'] = $username;
  // ...

  $form_state['redirect'] = 'the path for your page';
}

function firstmodule_show_submitted_data() {
  // Populate $result with the string to show.

  return $result;
}

As side note, the first argument of t() must be a literal string, not a string obtained concatenating two strings, as in your case. You should use placeholders, as in the following code.

drupal_set_message(t("The user is %username", array('%username' => $username)));

In Drupal 7, instead of returning a string, you can return a render array.

Answer 3

All submitted data stored in $form_state, if u want to see what happens install devel module and after you always can do like this:

Inside your firstmodule_form1_submit function to print all the array $form_state type - dpm($form_state) - and you will see output, where u can find your textbox username or any other, will be something similar to this $form_state['values']['username']

And then you can just print it drupal_set_message(t($form_state['values']['username']);

Answer 4

What you need to do is to have a menu callback, basically that would be a page you set up and display the info on.

More info is available here: http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes!menu.inc/group/menu/7 and you need to read more about hook_menu()

Hope that helps, tell me if you need an example.