Processing a multipart form

Anon

Hi - I'm trying to set up a course registration process using php3 and mysql. Each course has 3 possible prices. The code to produce the course list in form format with radio buttons is in a while loop and looks like this:

print "<table width=\"75%\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n";
print "<tr>\n<td width=\"74%\">$courName  </td>\n";
print "<td colspan=\"2\" width=\"26%\">To register, select applicable rate:</td>\n</tr>\n";
print "<tr>\n<td width=\"74%\">$courInstruct  </td>\n";
print "<td colspan=\"2\" width=\"26%\"><input type=\"radio\" name=course$courID value=Regular>$$priceRegular</td>\n</tr>\n";
print "<tr>\n<td width=\"74%\">$timesDate  </td>\n";
print "<td colspan=\"2\" width=\"26%\"><input type=\"radio\" name=course$courID value=Team>$$priceTeam Team</td>\n</tr>\n";
print "<tr>\n<td width=\"74%\">$courDesc  </td>\n";
print "<td colspan=\"2\" width=\"26%\"><input type=\"radio\" name=course$courID value=Retired>$$priceRetired Retired</td>\n</tr>\n</table>\n<p> </p>\n";
}

That's all fine, but in the next step I have to make sure a course has been selected. How do I run through the radio button name variables $course1, $course2, etc to see if they contain data?

I realize that this might not be the clearest explaination ever, but any help you could provide would be great. Thanks!

Anon

It would be easier if you forced a default selection because I believe it is impossible to unselect a radio button group except through javascript.

Anon

Thanks for your reply. The proplem with having a default selection (using the same variable name for each radio button) is that then only one button can be selected. While I do only want one button selected per course, I'd like the user to be able to select multiple courses. Any other ideas? Perhaps I need an entirely different set-up, though I'm not sure what that would be!

Anon

I would recommend using phplib and templates and set_block for this if you are serious about an entirely different setup.

As for 1 button per course and multiple courses per selection, the code as presented in your first script should work that way assuming you are incrementing $courID with each iteration.

Anon

Thanks again - maybe I will need to explore phplib and templates and set_block, though I have no experience in that area. As you point out, the code does work in regards to the radio buttons. What I can't figure out is how to check that one of the buttons has actually been selected. As the variables with information with be in the form $course1, etc., how do I walk through the possibilities to check which variables have content value such as "Regular"?

Anon

If you are submitting this as a form all of your variables will be in the array $HTTP_POST_VARS which you can do a foreach through and check all variables posted from the form. You could easily use a logic structure inside of that loop to look at your specific variables for your courses.

There are some examples of this on this site and in the manual (if you can find it). Just do a search here and I'm sure you will find what you need. Sorry I don't remember the code off the top of my head.

Tim Frank