Passing a SQL Statement

geogal

Hi All,

I hope this isn't a stupid question. I have a page that selects all the items in a database for display. The user can sort the columns and, through a dropdown box, filter the results by date. When they have the view they want, the user then has the option of downloading a .txt file of the result set.

The problem is I keep getting the entire database downloaded and not the filtered result set. I'm trying to add the SQL statement to the download button in a hidden field, but this isn't working (I don't even know if it's possible). I also tried to pass it through a query string, but that didn't work either. Here's a sample:

<?
$sql = "SELECT . . ."; <---- this contains a dynamic WHERE clause that is dependant upon the user's filter preference
?>

[DISPLAY RESULTS HERE]

' **** Then at the bottom of the result set ********

<?
if($btnDownload){

$query = $_POST["query"];
$result = mysql_query($query);

header ("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header ("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"result.txt\"");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_row ($result))
print (join ("\t", $row) . "\n");
mysql_free_result ($result);

}

?>

Any ideas? It seems like it would work, but obviously I'm missing something.

Geogal

dgnorton

I could be off the mark here, but, your form has to be submitted to somewhere, and with it the variables that your users have selected.

If thats the case, you could add the action="http://wherever.its.going.html?var1=val1&var2=val2" to your form tag to pass the variables to whatever .php script processes them.

In fact, if the script contains the form and the php script elements together, you could submit the variables back to the script itself to be processed; I've done that quite a few times.

geogal

Hi dgnorton,

Thanks for the response. Yeah, I'm trying to submit the form to itself (hence the " " in the action) and pick up the variable $query from the hidden field. For some reason it isn't passing properly because I get an error message right at the result line.

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource

This tells me there is something screwy with my SQL statement and I received no results. When I print the SQL statement above the form, it prints correctly and changes upon re-filtering the result set. So it's not passing through the form correctly (or I'm not capturing it properly).

Geogal

geogal

Okay, I've finally figured it out. To anyone who is interested, you have to capture the posted variable and then use STRIPSLASHES on the input.:

<?
if($btnDownload){
$query = stripslashes($_POST["query"]);

$result = mysql_query($query);
header ("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header ("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"result.txt\"");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_row ($result))
print (join ("\t", $row) . "\n");
mysql_free_result ($result);
}
?>

Cheers,
Geogal