PLEASE HELP ME- form order problem

[Anon]

I have tried in vain for the past week to get people on this board to help me out with a problem, and noone ever answers, I explain the problem in detail, so I guess that is why noone reads it, so here is the short short short version-

I have a 3 step form for entering profiles since I have 3 different tables the data will be put into. When a step is completed, they are given a link to the next step's form. How can prevent 2 users from using the form at the same time and getting the Primary Keys mixed up?

Example- Person A completes step 1 and then goes to make brownies in the kitchen. Meanwhile Person B completes All of the steps- so now Person B has the following primary keys- 2, 1, 1. And Person A after he gets done in the kitchen will have primary keys 1, 2, 2. This will messup my structure.

How do I prevent this?

[sfullman]

This question comes up a lot. You used general terms, so I can only answer you generally, but hopefully this starts a discussion. Email me if you have to.

You mentioned primary key, so I assume something's going into a database. If multiple users have access to a process, there is NO WAY of reserving a primary key until the data is actually inserted. Put another way, if user A starts on a process and there are 500 records in the database, we can assume that his record will be 501 only if nobody else uses the process until he's finished. In the web world, this doesn't happen.

Therefore, the only way I know to do this is to insert SOMETHING in the database to create a primary key, get that key's value, and take it along for the ride on each additional form page, and perform updates to the intial "skeleton" record.

Here is a general plan of attack for multiple forms: Have the first form enter some sort of "bookmark" info into the database (say user name and password). check the database for a duplicate username though and kick the form back if this is the case. If the username is new, This will result in a primary key being assigned. Immediately afterwards, use this SQL statement:

select primaryKey from table where username = [the name they selected].

Then, pass that key from form to form and flesh out the record either on each form or at the end (using hidden fields).

BY THE WAY, THE INTERFERENCE CONCEPT AND ASSIGNMENT OF A PRIMARY KEY IS A FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE THAT DATABASE PROGRAMMERS DEAL WITH. THE WAY I MENTIONED ABOVE WORKS FOR ME, I'D LOVE IT IF SOMEONE COULD TELL ME A MORE ELEGANT SOLUTION.

[Anon]

Actually I think that would work- sometimes I get completely wrapped up in something- and the answer was there right in front of me all along! I will try that and see if it works.

My initial problem was that the profile was a one page form and I had set up the database to have three seperate tables- one for Acess Set Up (password/usernames), one for Personal Profile Information (name, address,phone) and one for BIOGRAPHICAL INFO (Character name, species and so on.). This presented a problem- how do I insert data into multiple tables using the data from one form- that is when it was suggested this method I am using now.

I do have one other question- I want the user re-directed directly to the next Step in the process. BUT- when I have this piece of code:

header("location:http://trinitypa.com/TEST/Step2.htm");

I get an error because I used an Include to another file in another directory that stores my mysql variables. Is it impossible to redirect if you have an include function on the same script?