Validating and Processing Form Submissions
  Templating System : User Guide
Important Note: The 
ad_form 
function has been written to be a more consistent, easier way to create and 
manage dynamic forms. Behind the scenes it uses the templating system's form 
builder, but it hides much of its complexity. You should definitely look at
it and at the pages that use it in the survey package.
The templating system provides a simple infrastructure for validating
form submissions.  The typical life-cycle of a form is as follows:
  - The user makes the initial request for a page containing a form.
      The code associated with the page creates the form (with the
      form create command) and populates it with elements.
  
- The developer may use the form is_request command to
      encapsulate any special initialization (for example, setting a
      primary key value for an Add form, or retrieving current
      values for an Edit form).
  
- The formtemplate tag is used to enclose the form
      template.  This tag is responsible for generating the appropriate
      HTML FORM tag in the final output.  The formtemplate
      tag also embeds a special hidden variable in the form for the
      purpose of identifying incoming submissions.
 
  
- By default, the formtemplate tag sets the
      ACTION attribute of the FORM tag to the
      same URL as that of the form itself.  The submission is
      therefor processed within the framework of the same code that
      was used to create the form.  
  
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templating@arsdigita.com