Dynamic variables, from HTML form/MYSQL DB

[adamlloyd]

Hi, just a lame question, firstly a bit of background; I can code (poorly) newbie ish to PHP, but posting here cos i think my question is within your realm.....

I have a HTML form, that has a whole load of checkboxes, these are drawn from a table in my DB, these checkboxes can increase or decrease, ie there are 'n' amount of check boxes.

include("../ad.inc");
$db = mysql_connect ($host, $username, $password) or die ("Could not connect to the database.");
mysql_select_db ($dbase, $db);

<?php 	
	$event_types=mysql_query("select * from event_type order by display_value");
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($event_types)) {  

	?>
	<tr>
		<td class="spacer" colspan="4"></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="textblackmedbold" colspan="4"><?= $row["Event_Type"] ?> </td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="spacer" colspan="4"></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="textblackmed" colspan="4"><?= $row["Free_Text"] ?></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="spacer" colspan="4"></td>
	</tr>
	<?
		$display_value = $row["Display_Value"] ;
		$result=mysql_query("select * from events where event_type_id = $display_value");
		while ($events = mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
		{
		?>
		<tr>
<!--		<td><input type = "checkbox" name="<?= $row["Event_Type"]; ?><?= $events["Event_ID"]; ?>" value="<?= $events["Event_ID"] ?>"></td> -->
 			<td><input type = "checkbox" name="eventid<?= $events["Event_ID"]; ?>" value="<?= $events["Event_ID"] ?>"></td>
			<td class="textblackmed" width="10" align="left">&pound;<?= $events["Amount"] ?> </td>
			<td class="textblackmed" width="*"><?= $events["Title"] ?> </td>
			<td class="textblackmed" width="*"><?= $events["Text"] ?> </td>
			<td class="textblackmed" width="90"><?= $events["Date_Running"] ?> </td>
			<td class="textblackmed" width="5"><?= $events["Time_Running"] ?> </td>
		</tr>
		<?
		}
		?>	
	<?
	}
	?>

I want to grab the values on my next page, from these checkboxes, obviously. So far i am trying to create variables, using the same table that creates the checkboxes on the first form.

like this.....

<?php
include("../ad.inc");
$db = mysql_connect ($host, $username, $password) or die ("Could not connect to the database.");
mysql_select_db ($dbase, $db);

$result=mysql_query("select * from events");
		while ($events = mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
		{
		?>
		<? # echo $events['event_id']; ?>  <? # Edit ?>
		<? $events = $_REQUEST['eventid'. $events['Event_ID']];?>
		<?
		}
		?>
<? echo $events['event_id']; ?>  <? # Edit ?>

Does this make sense?

So basically i have an array containg the boolean values from the checkboxes, yeah?

i want to put the values into variables, prob same names(eventid1, eventid2, eventidn)

Just to rub salt in the wounds, i also want to display these values to the user, i can do that by referencing the variables, i just gotta work out how to do it dynamically.....but i'll start running once you guys have, hopefully, helped me to walk.

thanx
ad

[cgraz]

I don't see any point in giving your checkbox a name from your database if the value is their id. You can use that value to identify
the checkbox later. By giving it a name like you have, you make it very hard to work with. What I personally would do is make the
checkboxes an array with the value being the id, then just loop through the array on the next page and do what you want with it. To make it an array, just add [] after the name on the checkbox. For example:

<input type="checkbox" name="field_name[]" value="<?= $events["Event_ID"] ?>">

Then on the processing page, you have access to the array $field_name. You can easily loop through it using a foreach loop.

Cgraz

[adamlloyd]

Cheers, I'll give it a go....

Thanks for the speedy advice.