Deleting Selected Items in a Loop

[Just_Some_Dude]

Hi All.

This is an HTML/PHP issue I've been tearing my hair out over and I thought maybe someone might be able to give me some advice.

I've written a simple guest book-type message board. I want to give users the ability to delete or "mask" messages so that they don't contine to see them. In order to do this, I've embedded a "Submit" button that posts the Users's ID and the Message_ID back to the form. I then use an ISSET to flip the "masked" flag to that particular message.

Now the problem is that I display the messages as part of a loop. So, the SUBMIT button is posting the last message_ID displayed rather than the ID of the message the user chooses to delete. It's actually even a little inconsistant at that.

Here is the basic flow:

1) Look up Messages waiting for the User
2) While there are still messages;
-- If the message is masked, don't display
-- If not masked, then display
-- Display a "Delete" Button
-- If Button is clicked, pass the message_ID for use by an ISSET function
3) Next Message

Unfortunately, even though the correct message_id is displayed at the point a create the "HIDDEN" variable for POSTING (passing) back the form, I think it's still passing the last message_id displayed rather than the correct one.

Maybe this isn't the way I should be going about this...I don't know. Basically, if you look at PHPADMIN, and you browse a table, you can see a "Delete" link on each row...this lets you delete the row. I'm looking to do something similar (set a flag to "Y" if clicked)... Still, I imagine the button or link should be do-able.

Any advice would be appreciated. For anyone interested by this problem, here is an actual code snippet:

								/******************************/
								/* Get linked user's messages */
								/******************************/
								while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result2))
								{

							$original = $row["message_id"];
							$message = $row["message"];
							$date = $row["date"];

							/*********************/
							/* Check for Masking */
							/*********************/
							$sql_mask = "select * from users_mask where (user_id = '$user_id' and message_id = '$original')";
							$result_mask = mysql_query($sql_mask);
							$num_masked = mysql_num_rows($result_mask);

							if ($num_masked == 0) {

								/***************************/
								/* Get Poster's Login Name */
								/***************************/
								$sql3 = "select * from users where user_id = $select[user]";
								$result3 = mysql_query($sql3);
								$row2 = mysql_fetch_array($result3);
								$dbuser = $row2["user_login"];

						?>

								<br>
								<form action="main_pb.php" method="post">
								<table align="center" width="95%">
									<tr>
										<td class="main">	
											<b>Posted By:&nbsp;</b><? echo $dbuser; ?><br>	
											<b>Posted On:&nbsp;</b><? echo $date; ?><br>
										</td>
										<td align="right" valign="top">

											// Note: Here the "$original" value is the correct one (i.e., the current message's ID)
											//       Yet, when the SUBMIT is clicked, it passes the wrong ID (i.e., usually the last one in the loop)

											<input type="hidden" name="SID" value=<? echo $SID; ?>>
											<input type="hidden" name="message_id" value=<? echo $original; ?>>
											<input style='font-size: 9; font-face: verdana,ariel,helvetica; font-color='#000033' type="submit" value="Delete" name="delete">
										</td>
									</tr>
									<tr>
										<td class="main" colspan="2">
											<br>
											<? echo $message;?>
											<br>
										</td>
									</tr>
									<tr>
										<td align="right" colspan="2">
											<br>
											<hr>
										</td>
									</tr>
								</table>

						<?	
								}							
							}
						}
						?>

[xblue]

now do you want a link for each record (which would mean setting the flag for a single record) or something like checkboxes where all checked records would be processed at once?

then you'd need to append [] your to input names, like name="message_id[]" to get them as an array.

I don't quite understand why you use hidden fields for the id, shouldn't the user have the option to select something? but anyway, the trick with the square brackets works for any input.

if I got you right, you might want to take a look at the example here:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10229629

[Just_Some_Dude]

Thanks for your reply.

I am looking to have a link per record, not a list of checkboxes (though I'll look into that if I can't get this to work).

Here is my thought process (as tattered as it may have been)...Each iteration through the loop prints out a message and a "Delete" button. If the button is clicked, then it passes the MESSAGE_ID and USER_ID (via Session Identifier) to the ISSET function. The ISSET function inserts a row to the DB which acts as the "mask". The masking stuff works okay. The problem is inserting the correct data.

Anyway, that's why I'm using the Hidden Variables...I'm attempting to pass the necessary Message_ID and User_ID information so that the ISSET function can do it's thing. Unfortunately, even though the Hidden MESSAGE_ID field is set correctly in each iteration, I don't think the HTML SUBMIT button is working like I thought it would. It looks like no matter which button you click, it is still acting like the last one displayed and therefore, it is passing the last MESSAGE_ID instead of the one you want.

Any advice is appreciated! 😃

[xblue]

thanks, the picture is getting a little clearer now.

okay, you'd need a separate form for each record then. you do create an opening form tag within the loop, but I don't see a closing one, thus all inputs on the page would be submitted, overwriting each other since they have the same name.

[Just_Some_Dude]

Hot Damn! A one second fix. I took one look at ypur post and couldn't believe I just closed the tag too late in the code. But that was exactly it.

I'm a little embarassed it was something so simple...but at least those are the easiest things to fix.

Thanks!