populating specific checkboxes

[Anon]

Hi,

It seems I'm never gonna get this picture:-)
The problem is with array.

I have a form with 10 checkboxes like
<input type="checkbox" name="keyword[3]" value="software" >

and want to populate it with data from a DB from ONE field, which may contain up to 10 elements separated by comma.

Here's what I do:
$keyword = explode(" ",$section); //section is the name of this DB field
$bar = each ($keyword);

if ($bar[$i] = "hardware") {
$keyword[1] = "checked";
}
else {
$keyword[1] = "";
}
if ($bar[$i] == "internet") {
$keyword[2] = "checked";
}
else {
$keyword[2]= "";
}

At the end, I get only the last value from the array, but can't make the form check even this one:-) All checkboxes remain unchecked.

Any hints?

Witold

[Anon]

Not sure if this was a typo or not, but your first IF statement does not perform a check, but rather sets $bar[$i] equal to "hardware".

[Anon]

surely, that wasn't intended. so how am i to rewrite the code to make the actual check-up of variables in the array?

maybe it should look like: (if $bar='hardware'){...

witold

[Anon]

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do from your description, but I think you're trying to:

1) Print out checkboxes
2) Pre-check the checkboxes from database data (maybe from the user's previous selections?)
3) Return an array (keyword) when the user submits, which will contain the new selections

If so, I would think the easiest way to do it would be something like this:

---

/ set up array of checkbox choices /
$type=array( "software", "hardware", "internet" );

/ split db field into array of previous values /
$keyword=explode( " ", $section );

foreach( $type as $key => $value ){
print( "<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"keyword[$key]\" value=\"$value\"" );
if( in_array( $value, $keyword ) ){
print( " checked" );
}
print( "><br>" );
}

---

This should print out three checkboxes for "software", "hardware", and "internet", and check
any that were in the database field "$section"

Obviously you would expand the array "$type" to include all your checkbox choices.

/Zureash

[Anon]

Great many thanks pal!

Today eventually I could put this code into action and know what? It works! Thank you very much.

Still, I don't understand how arrays work, so if possible, please recommend a good tutorial I could use. The manual at PHPBUILDER is not enough for me. Or maybe I'm not smart enough:-)

One tip for those you may be reading this post in the future! If you happen to put more than one value in the same cell in your DB - don't separate them with a comma, but rather with a space.

Regards,

Witold

[Anon]

After w while I thought I could also tell everybody how to update your DB with new settings after you check new checkboxes.

if ($submit) {
//to have all answers in one variable delimited by a space.

$checkboxes = implode (" ", $keyword);

$sql = "UPDATE yourdb SET section='$checkboxes'";
$sql_result = mysql_query($sql);
}

Good luck,

Witold