Best way to avoid the submit due to a refresh of the page

Question

I think that this problem occurs often on a web application development. But I'll try to explain in details my problem.

I'd like to know how to correct this behavior, for example, when I have a block of code like this :

<?
    if (isset($_POST['name'])) {
        ... operation on database, like to insert $_POST['name'] in a table ...
        echo "Operation Done";
        die();
    }

?>

<form action='page.php' method='post' name="myForm">
    <input type="text" maxlength="50" name="name" class="input400" />
    <input type="submit" name="Submit" />
</form>

When the form gets submitted, the data get inserted into the database, and the message Operation Done is produced. Then, if I refreshed the page, the data would get inserted into the database again.

How this problem can be avoided? Any suggestion will be appreciated :)

Answer 1

Don't show the response after your create action; redirect to another page after the action completes instead. If someone refreshes, they're refreshing the GET requested page you redirected to.

// submit
// set success flash message (you are using a framework, right?)
header('Location: /path/to/record');
exit;