Retreive Single Checkbox Values

storyteller

All the articles here deal with Checkbox arrays! Arrrgh!

I want to retrieve, store, and If...Then on the value of a SINGLE checkbox which is not part of an array.

i.e.: Show This Address? [] <-- single checkbox, not part on an array, in a standard HTML form.

After posting, what values will the checkbox return? Are they TRUE/FALSE, or integer, or what? What's the best way to store them in a MySQL database, and retreive that value as the default for another form?

Help!!

Anon

here is a cool little script that you can use as the script that processes your form. It will give you all the values passed from the form to the resulting page. You could use this to find out exactly what ANY form element passes you.

<?
//display all variable values passed to a page from a form //
while (list($key, $val) = each($HTTP_POST_VARS)) {
if (!is_array($val)) { //ifvariable is not an array//
echo "$key => $val<BR>\n";
} else {
echo $key;
print_r($val); echo "<BR>\n";
// $sql = "INSERT INTO table '" . addslashes(serialize($val)) . "'"; //
}
}
?>

as far as what to store it as, I would store it as a binary value - either 1/0 or Y/N. Either whay you will still have to do a if/then to retreive the default value for another form. i.e.

if (mycheck==1) print " checked";

or selected or whatever (can't remember!)

:-)

storyteller

Thanks for that.

Unfortunately, didn't help.

But! Investigation showed that what I needed was the missing HTML tag for a checkbox.

With the above, if the checkbox is ticked it will return returnval. If the checkbox is not ticked, it returns nothing (or a NULL).

returnval can be any value. The CHECKED part states whether the box is ticked by default. Can be UNCHECKED.

So, if the variable I'm using as a persistant TRUE/FALSE type object is called $showdat,

$showdat="CHECKED"; 'value can come from a database
echo "<Input Type='Checkbox' Name='showdat' Value='CHECKED' $showdat>";

This will make the default $showdat (useful when pulling from a database). The returned variable, $showdat will then have a value of CHECKED if it was, or NULL if it wasn't. A value of CHECKED or UNCHECKED is then written back to the database.

Note: When checking in a If...Then statement, I use ($showdat=="CHECKED") or ($showdat!="CHECKED") rather than checking for NULL.

Cheers,
Tim