mysql design and php insert query help

alibaba184

I am designing a database to hold a directory. I have each persons stats in a "info" table. One of the stats is "areas of practice". There is approx 15 choices to go in this field and there can be more than one choice to be input. (eg. one person could only do real estate law while another does real estate, contract, and civil liberties)

The input form is similar to:

name:__
firm:
address:__
...
...
...
...

areas of practice-check all that apply:
real estate contract commercial etc.

          submit              clear

Should I have a seperate table just for areas of practice with each area being its own field. If so, how do I input the data for the info table, which assigns an auto increment id#, and input the data to the areas of practice table at the same time using the id# just assigned.

Thanks for any help,

JT😕

alibaba184

If I set up the "info" table to have "practice_areas" field as a set. how would I post the info from the form to include all of the marked choices.

Thanks,

ghiberti

It would be good db practice to use a separate table to record the areas of pratice with a structure along the lines of:

practice_id (auto_increment)
person_id (use the number or code generated by the info table)
area_id (linking to code table of areas of practice)

1 row per area of practice per person will be recorded

In terms of how to use the auto_increment generated by the info table to populate the areas_of_pratice table use the following mysql function:

mysql_insert_id(); to capture the last generated auto_id number

:http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-insert-id.php

gives more info

ghiberti

I would imagine the practice areas would be selected by either a multiple select drop-down or checkboxes.

using either <select multiple name=practice_areas[]>

or <input type=checkbox name=practice_areas[] value?>

will capture the user input into the array practice_areas

once this form has been posted count the number of elements in pratice_areas then perform this many inserts to the info table looping through the values of practice_areas

alibaba184

Thanks for the info. I will use it. The Multiple tag for the for wes pretty simple I was just having brain freeze. Thanks again fo the help.