What are some elegant solutions for preserving form data when navigating back to a page in PHP?

When navigating back to a page in PHP, one elegant solution for preserving form data is to store the form data in sessions. This way, the data can be easily retrieved and displayed when the user returns to the page. 

// Start the session
session_start();

// Check if form data has been submitted
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') {
    // Store form data in session variables
    $_SESSION['form_data'] = $_POST;
} else {
    // Retrieve form data from session variables
    $form_data = isset($_SESSION['form_data']) ? $_SESSION['form_data'] : [];
}

// Display the form with preserved data
<form method="post">
    <input type="text" name="name" value="<?php echo isset($form_data['name']) ? $form_data['name'] : ''; ?>">
    <input type="email" name="email" value="<?php echo isset($form_data['email']) ? $form_data['email'] : ''; ?>">
    <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

Keywords

session variables cookies hidden form fields server-side validation form submission

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