Passing Form Variables with mySQL

Jason_Jones

Howdy!

To start, I can say with confidence that "<?" represents PHP. With that said, let's move on...

I have been researching threads and downloading snippets 'n such for some time now looking for what I think would be a rather simple task, however I have not succeeded in my objectives thus far.

I will attempt to explain as directly as I can, but please forgive me if I refer to things incorrectly.

The objective:

After a whole heck of a lot of data entry I have successfully logged all of my plants into a mySQL database.

Now I would like to have one (1) form field...

<html>
<head>
<title>Plant</title>
</head>

</body>
</html>

This form field then goes to "plant.php" to process the plant name, or heck even the same page for all I care.

I then call the database in "plants.php" using the code my host provided:

$dbh=mysql_connect ("", "", "") or die ('I cannot connect to the database.');
mysql_select_db ("plants");

Next I grab the four columns in the plant table...at least I'd like to.

This is where I fail and heave my monitor out the window.

All I want is an easy way to reference my stock. It took a few months for me to put all 4,658 different plants I have (or have had and may get again) into the database.

The results should be a simple ASCII list:

Daiseys - 100 - Instock - Greenhouse A

There should never ever be two rows, ever.

I say that because the closest I came was spitting out the entire content of my database.

So, if you would, please help me; all of you codeing guru's out there... And feel free speak to me like a four year old - remember how I started this post?

shaitan

Yo,

Give me some more info like table and field names and then I will give you some example code.

Jason_Jones

Database Name: plants

Table name: plants

Fields:

plant
quantity
stock
location

Does that help you?

shaitan

ok after selecting your db, u wanna do something like the following

$query = "select plant, quantity, stock, location from plants where plant ='$plant'";

$result = mysql($query) or die( "Error !! mysql : $query : " . mysql_error());

if (mysql_num_rows($result)) // matching results found
{
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$quantity = $row["quantity"];
$stock = $row["stock"];
$location = $row["location"];

if ($quantity) // items in stock
   $stocktext = 'In Stock';
else  // items out of stock
   $stocktext = 'Out of Stock';

print "$plant - $quantity - $stocktext - $location";

}
else print "$plant does not exist, please retry your search";

There are several ways of getting data out of a db, but I prefer the above as its very easy to follow, even it it may be longer than other methods 🙂

Hope that works for you.

Shaitan

Jason_Jones

Hey!

Thanks a lot!!!

I posted that script, however I recieved the following error:

Warning: Wrong parameter count for mysql() in /home/public_html/plants.php on line 8
Error !! mysql : select plant, quantity, stock, location from plants where plant ='daisey' :

What is that all about?

shaitan

Yo m8,

Looks to me like there is a slight prob with ur db, can u give me a list of the table structure.

Jason_Jones

Is this what you are looking for?

Field Type Null Default

plant char(255) Yes NULL

quantity char(255) Yes NULL

stock char(255) Yes NULL

location char(255) Yes NULL

Keyname Type Cardinality Field
plant UNIQUE 4568 plant

Jason_Jones

BTW, how does this fit into the picture? I have it as a seperate file:

<html>
<head>
<title>Plants</title>
</head>

</body>
</html>

shaitan

Providing the file that does the php processing is called plants.php in the same directory it will all work without any problems.

I am checking out that other prob, never had it myself before 🙂

Shaitan

shaitan

can you post your complete php code so I can check it out, looks like its the way the select it trying get the data from the db, as i access it differently then u.

Jason_Jones

$dbh=mysql_connect ("localhost", "moi", "xxxxx") or die ('I cannot connect to the database.');
mysql_select_db ("plants");

$query = "select plant, quantity, stock, location from plants where plant ='$plant'";

$result = mysql($query) or die( "Error !! mysql : $query : " . mysql_error());

if (mysql_num_rows($result)) // matching results found
{
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$quantity = $row["quantity"];
$stock = $row["stock"];
$location = $row["location"];

//I removed the quantity finder, being that the field already supplies "in stock" or "out of stock"//

print "$plant - $quantity - $stock - $location";
}
else print "$plant does not exist, please retry your search";

shaitan

ok try the following, basically i have removed the mysql_select_db and put the name of the db at the front of the table name, let me know how that goes

$dbh=mysql_connect ("localhost", "moi", "xxxxx") or die ('I cannot connect to the database.');

$query = "select plants.plant, quantity, stock, location from plants where plant ='$plant'";

$result = mysql($query) or die( "Error !! mysql : $query : " . mysql_error());

if (mysql_num_rows($result)) // matching results found
{
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$quantity = $row["quantity"];
$stock = $row["stock"];
$location = $row["location"];

//I removed the quantity finder, being that the field already supplies "in stock" or "out of stock"//

print "$plant - $quantity - $stock - $location";
}
else print "$plant does not exist, please retry your search";

Jason_Jones

Hey!

Unfortunately I have recieved the same error.

But, this is what I've been going through for a while, so I see no reason why you should heave YOUR monitor out the window.

Unless you've got another wild and wacky idea, perhaps giving it up to fight another battle is a good idea.

shaitan

Hi Mate,

One last thing to try eh, change the types for the columns so they aint null, and see if that works.

Shaitan

Jason_Jones

What would I change it to? Not Null?

shaitan

yo m8,

yup 🙂 you got it right 🙂

Jason_Jones

Hello!

I certainly thank you very much for your efforts at resolving this problem.

Regretfully, "not NULL" failed, and I got the same error yet again.

I would like to keep this thread open to everyone else out there that may be able to identify another solution.

Again, thank you for giving it your best and taking the time to assist me with this.

Jason_Jones

Hey!

I got it working!!!!

New question:

How do I get this:

while ($sql -> ReadRow()) {
echo $sql -> RowData["plant"] . ", ";
echo $sql -> RowData["quantity"] . ", ";
echo $sql -> RowData["stock"] . ", ";
echo $sql -> RowData["location"] . " ";

}

To print within HTML without embedding HTML into the PHP? This example does not work:

<html>
<head>
<title>Plant Information</title>
</head>

shaitan

Yo Mate,

Glad you got it working 🙂 what did you do to fix it?

As for the prob u r having now i take it its printing out blank values? If so its becuase the variables in php exist only in that page as such, so the easiest way although not the way i would do it 🙂

Is to simply put the html at the bottom of the php file making sure its outside the closing tag, that way you can access the variables fine.

Cheers

Shaitan

Jason_Jones

Hey!

How did I do it?

Well, first, by actually LOOKING at the code you provided I was able to slowly understand how it all works; sort of like a machine.

Then I continued research online with my new found understanding.

I discovered a class file at Zend.com. By referencing the class.inc in the source, your code; with the appropiate modifications, successfully retrieved the data.

Printing it out was difficult, but by following your lead yet again I have gotten that to work too!!!

My thanks to you. If you are in the North Georgia, North Alabama, Southern Tennessee area anytime; perhaps you could swing by and take your pick of things. I'm sure a Japanese Maple would look great near the entrance of your house 🙂 ...