Direct form to a custom page template

Question

I have the following form in a Wordpress page :

<form action="dbsearch.php" method="POST">
 <input name="input" type="text"> <select name="search4" size="1">
 <option selected="">option1
 </option><option>option2
 </option><option>option3
 </option><option>option5
 </option></select>
 <input value="Go!" type="submit">
</form>

The form provides the user an interface to search for data stored in a database. I have created a custom page, page_dbsearch.php, by coping page.php and renaming it. There I want to put the php code to query the database and show the results. It is placed in the theme directory. In fact in the child theme directory. I have use the information from https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/template-files-section/page-template-files/page-templates/#creating-a-custom-page-template-for-one-specific-page

The problem is when I use the form it shows the 404 not found page and not page_dbsearch.php. I have tried changing several things but it did not work.

I am new to Wordpress and I would appreciate it if someone can help me with this.

Thank you.

Answer 1

A helpful clue would be to look at the URL in the address bar of your 404 page. A reliable approach for form action in WP looks like the snippet below.

<form method="post" id="thisform" action="<?php bloginfo('url'); >/dbsearch/">

I would create your page in WP, ensure the page slug is 'dbsearch' as this determines your permalink (http://domain/dbsearch) and the template used. You can of course use any slug you like but match this to your form action. Rename your script 'page_dbsearch.php' to 'page-dbsearch.php'. WP will pick this up as the page template for your results page.

All of your form data will be available in the $_POST array to write your DB query with.