"save" the value of a variable

Anon

Hi,
Is there a way to assign a fixed and persistent value to a variable so that
if there are different forms on a page finding the result of the second form
will not "delete" the result value of the first one?

In my case, I have 2 forms that execute the same query.
So if I "post" the first form, I get the right value (on the same page),
but if I "post" the second form, I also get the right value (on the same page)
but the result of the first form disappears...

Thanks in advance!
Bruno

PS: I don't wanna have to save this value in the db...

Anon

If I understand your question correctly, you are looking for "global" variables. PHP 4.0 allows for session variables to persist from one web page to the next.

Just remember to call session(); on each page.

Anon

Thanks for your advice but I tried the global thing and it does not work...
Can I assign a value to a global variable after it has been declared?
Can I make this value replaceable?
Note: I wrote "session();" at the top of the page, but it gives an error...

HERE IS MY CODE
$i=0;
while ($prod = db_fetch_object($qid)) {
$i++;
$id = $prod["id"];
$ref = $prod["reference"];

//HERE STARTS THE CODE TO DETERMINE THE PRICE
if(isset($HTTP_POST_VARS))
{
foreach ($HTTP_POST_VARS as $c=>$v)
{
if($c=="selectName1") {$selectName1=$v;}
if($c=="selectName2") {$selectName2=$v;}
if($c=="selectName3") {$selectName3=$v;}
}
$QueryPrice = "SELECT price FROM price WHERE id=$selectName1 AND id1=$selectName2 AND id2=$selectName3";
$PriceResult = mysql_query($QueryPrice);
while($p = mysql_fetch_array($PriceResult))
{
if($enter1){
$price1 = $p["price"];
}
if($enter2){
$price2 = $p["price"];
}

unset($HTTP_POST_VARS);
}

echo($prod->id);
echo($prod->reference);

if($enter1 && $i=='1') { print"$price1"; }
if($enter2 && $i=='2') { print"$price2"; } (etc...)

//AND HERE IS MY ISSUE:
if($enter2) THEN !($enter1), so $price1 won't appear, even if $enter1 has been submitted before $enter2
In other words, if I submit the first query, I get the price for the 1st product,
but if then i submit the second query, I get the price for the second product
BUT i cannot keep the price of the first one!
I have tried to make $price1 global when submitted, but it just does not work...
maybe i am not using it properly.

?>
<form name=\"formName1\" METHOD=POST>
<select name="selectName1" onChange="show()">
...
</select>
<select name="selectName2">
...
</select>
<select name="selectName3">
...
</select>
<?
print "<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Montrer le prix\" name=\"enter$i\">\n";
?>
</form>

<? } ?>//Here stops the while ($prod = db_fetch_object($qid)) loop

Any idea how to fix it?
Is my approach wrong?

Anon

Your browser options must be set up to accept cookies, because the session ID is sent to you (the client) when the session is started. This is done in a cookie called PHPSESSID. So make sure your browser accepts cookies or you can't use Sessions.
You must register each session variable,

e.g. session_register('svMy_var');

But you should only do this once. Each time you register a session variable, it is initialized to null. So the trick is to use this construction on your initial page:

if (!PHPSESSID)
{
session_register('svMy_var');
}

Thereafter you can set svMy_var to whatever value you like, and extract this value from $svMy_var. (I use the "sv" prefix to let me know I'm dealing with a session var.)

I did not see in your code where you registered any session variables.

Hope that helps.

Anon

OK, indeed, that helps...
I made it work (more or less, I still have a problem but not linked to this, I will post a question) but if I understand it right, it means that if the client's browser refuses cookies, then the price will not appear!
God, it sucks!

Is there a way to force the client's browser to accept cookies, temp at least?

Thanks a lot for your explainations!

Anon

Sorry, there is no way to force the client to use cookies. That is a choice they have to make under their options.

You could, of course, warn them that they cannot use your application unless they accept cookies. I'd venture to say that 90 percent of people out there have cookies enabled, only because so many web apps depend upon this. If you don't think that's true, try setting your cookies option to "warn before accepting" and see how long it can take to load some web pages!

If there is some guru out there that knows how to get sessions to work with cookies turned off, I'd like to also hear about it.

ps. This is also a notorious drawback to using javascripts. If the client browser has disabled JS, then all your neat little javascripts will not work.

Anon

If the user's browser has cookies disabled, PHP will try to use a variable passed in the URL instead. You can put tack this on to the URLs within your site explictly (a la <a href="page.php<?echo SID?>">), or turn on "enable_trans_sid" in your php.ini to have PHP tack it on itself to all relative URLs in all pages it sends out.