Formidable User ID Field Experiment

The Experiment

As a standard practice, we include the drag and drop user_id field on every form we build. Having the data in frm_item_metas makes user id related queries easier.

We just ran an experiment on our development server to see what Formidable does with user_id values. This is the experiment:

  1. Added user_id to catchall play form.
  2. Previewed form in theme
  3. Opened browser inspection tool to examine user id field's HTML

The hidden user id field is cryptically displayed. You cannot know this is a user id variable without the field id number. Look for name="item_meta[1462]" where the 1462 is the id of your form's user_id field.

  1. Change the value="1" data-frmval="1" to different numbers. Permutations:
    • value="3" data-frmval="3"
    • value="3" data-frmval="1"
    • value="1" data-frmval="3"
  2. Examine frm_items and frm_item_metas in PHPMyAdmin and compare user id fields.
  3. Submit entry

Results:

In each of three experiments testing permutations of the value and data-frmval combination, the outcome was the same. The user_id field in frm_items and the user_id meta field are identical. Formidable used the fake id number submitted as a test. There is no WordPress user id corresponding to the number submitted in the test. Formidable does not appear to validate the user id against the WordPress user table.

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