Sorting data based on a visitors input.

pup200

Could someone point me in the direction of either a script or article on sorting data based on a visitors input?

For example: I would like to provide information on the owners of a make of light aircraft based on the aircraft registration submitted by a form.

Although new to both “disciplines” I have been able to get my head around obtaining “predefined” data using MySQL & PHP, but have been at a loss, despite looking through archive postings, to find information on processing results of a visitor inputted form.

Once again thank you for any assistance you are able to provide.

JD
(London)

nnichols

I'm not 100% sure what you are asking. Do you simply want to know how to take information from a form and insert it in a db.

The results that come from your form are assigned to the predefined php "$POST" array (or $GET, depending on form method), and if you have "globals" on then you will be able to access them directly.

// so if you have a form field named "subject" it will be available as follows -
$form_subject = $_POST['subject'];

// and with globals you can also access it through
$form_subject = $subject;

Then, to insert the data into the db you need to write an INSERT query -

$sql = "INSERT INTO tbl_name (col1, col2, ..) VALUES (val1, val2, ..)";
mysql_query($sql);

The answers to all of these sorts of questions can be found in a good reference book. If you are new to PHP and MySQL I would suggest trying a book called "PHP and MySQL Web Development", written by Luke Welling & Laura Thomson and published by SAMS. There are plenty of books out there.

Hope this helps 😉

pup200

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply “nnichols.”

What I was actually after is a method of processing a query based on what a visitor entered in a “Search” box.
For example the visitor might want to know the registered owner of an aircraft with a registration of G-AXPM & would enter this in the search criteria. In other words every query would be different based on what is entered

Somehow I imagine I would imagine that I would have to parse the information given as a variable & get this reflected somehow in the SQL query line.

nnichols

I figured I was probably trying to teach you to "suck eggs" on that one, but I thought I'd try to interpret what you meant. Another go -

// you grab your form variable
$search = $_POST['search_term'];

// build your query
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE plane_reg LIKE '%$search%'";

// execute query in the normal way
$res = mysql_query($sql, $db);

You could make this slightly more elaborate by having another field in the form for indicating what field to search. A select box with the options of "registration", "make" etc. Then you could right your query like -

// you grab your form variables
$search = $_POST['search_term'];
$search_type = $_POST['search_type'];

// build your query
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE $search_type LIKE '%$search%'";

// execute query in the normal way
$res = mysql_query($sql, $db);

I hope this is more useful 😉

pup200

Thank you very much Sir – That all seems to make sense as written, I’ll try it out in my code & hopefully be bringing the UK up to speed with the registered owners of Bulldog aircraft around the world!

Once again thank you for taking the time out to help, I’ll report back once I have tried it out.

pup200

I have tried to run the query using the advise so far given – unfortunately all that I managed to return was a list of all first names, not just those stipulated in the query.

It is possible that being new to FORMS I have not set the query up correctly & would be grateful if someone could run over it for me.

Thank you again for any assistance.

The URL for the query page is http://www.jdwyer.plus.com/input.html

INPUT FORM

<html>

<head>

<title>INPUT TEST

</title>

</head>

<body>

<input type="Text" name="thebox" align="TOP" size="25"><br>

<input type="Submit" value="Make Query" align="MIDDLE">

</body>

</html>

SQL/PHP QUERY CODE

#!/usr/local/bin/php4

<html>

<body>

<?php

$link = mysql_pconnect ("**", "", "******")
or die ("Could not connect");

mysql_select_db ("***")
or die ("Could not select database");

$search = $_POST['thebox'];

$query = "SELECT first_name FROM president WHERE state LIKE '%$search%'";

$result = mysql_query ($query)
or die ("Query failed");

echo "<table ALIGN=center border=10>\n";

echo "<tr><td BGCOLOR='#FFC6A5'>Name</td></tr>\n";

while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array ($result)) {

	printf("<tr><td>%s</td><td>\n",
	$myrow[first_name]);

}

echo "</table>\n";

</body>

</html>