the following was declared in my html script:

First Name: <input type="text" value="<{$var}> name ="firstname">

...and the following was declared in the php script between the include header and footer statements:

$variable = $_POST['variable'];
xoopsTpl->assign('variable', $variable);

but when i try to load the page, instead of diaplying First Name and the text box, i get the following errors:

1. Notice [PHP]: Undefined index: var in file C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\html\modules\c_employee\index.php line 21

2. Error [Xoops]: Smarty: [in db:add_employee1.htm line 29]: syntax error: unrecognized tag: (Smarty_Compiler.class.php, line 382) in file C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\html\class\smarty\Smarty_Compiler.class.php line 1824

i figured that the reason for error # 1 is that the html page did not load, thereby not setting the index of the variable var. however, for # 2, i have no idea. did i use the wrong smarty tags?

I would suspect :

First Name: <input type="text" value="<{$var}>" name ="firstname">

Also, <{$var}> should be <{$variable}>.