Use this script to protect your contact form, your whois query tool or just a form where some extra validation is needed. How does it work?
A session will be created inside a dynamic image file (requires GD library). The random value of this image appears inside the generated CAPTCHA image. The user has to enter this value into a form field. While processing the form, the entered value get checked against the session value. Without entering the correct string a form will not be processed. This mechanism is very useful to protect your form again (spam) bots.
The PHP code snippet
Create a php file with that code an call it "random.php"
<?php session_start(); if (empty($_SESSION['rand_code'])) { $str = ""; $length = 0; for ($i = 0; $i < 4; $i++) { // this numbers refer to numbers of the ascii table (small-caps) $str .= chr(rand(97, 122)); } $_SESSION['rand_code'] = $str; } $imgX = 60; $imgY = 20; $image = imagecreatetruecolor(60, 20); $backgr_col = imagecolorallocate($image, 238,239,239); $border_col = imagecolorallocate($image, 208,208,208); $text_col = imagecolorallocate($image, 46,60,31); imagefilledrectangle($image, 0, 0, 60, 20, $backgr_col); imagerectangle($image, 0, 0, 59, 19, $border_col); $font = "VeraSe.ttf"; // it's a Bitstream font check <a href="http://www.gnome.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnome.org</a> for more $font_size = 10; $angle = 0; $box = imagettfbbox($font_size, $angle, $font, $_SESSION['rand_code']); $x = (int)($imgX - $box[4]) / 2; $y = (int)($imgY - $box[5]) / 2; imagettftext($image, $font_size, $angle, $x, $y, $text_col, $font, $_SESSION['rand_code']); header("Content-type: image/png"); imagepng($image); imagedestroy ($image); ?>
How-to use it?
Use this HTML code in your form:
<input type="text" name="validator" id="validator" size="4" /> <img src="random.php" alt="CAPTCHA image" align="top" />
This is the code to test the entered value:
if (!empty($_POST['validator']) && $_POST['validator'] == $_SESSION['rand_code']) { // process your form here // at least destroy the session unset($_SESSION['rand_code']); }