Globals, sessions

[raouleduke]

I think maybe I am having a mental block, can someone give me a boost, this should be easy, but have a lot of other things on my mind. I have this form that dynamically populates from a database, I want to use what they select as they global for the rest of the users pages, 3 pages on average. Should I be using sessions or can I just use it as a global. Here is the form. it seems to post to the next page but cannot get it to work. Thanks in advance.

<form action="selectgroup.php" name="form1" action="post"> 

<?
mysql_connect(""); 
mysql_select_db(""); 
$query1_result = mysql_query ("SELECT catagory FROM Dealers");
$num_results = mysql_num_rows($query1_result );
$catagories = array();
//use the for loop to populate the array with the unitnos from the query
for ($i=0; $i<$num_results; $i++)
{
  $catagory_row=mysql_fetch_object($query1_result );
  $catagories[]=$catagory_row->catagory;
}

//start the dropdown box
echo "<select name=\"catagory\" value=\"$catagory\" onChange=\"document.form1.submit();\">"; 
//detect if this script has been submited yet
if (!isset ($catagory)) 
{
  $selected_catagory = "";
}
else
{
  $selected_catagory = $catagory;
}
if ($selected_catagory == "")
{
  echo "<option value=\"\" SELECTED>SELECT DEALER</option>";
}
else
{
  echo "<option value=\"\" >SELECT DEALER</option>";
}
//populate the option and provide a SELECTED option for each item in the array

foreach ($catagories as $catagory)
{    

  if ($selected_catagory == $catagory) 
  {
    echo "<option value=\"$catagory\" SELECTED >$catagory</option>";
  }
  else
  {
    echo "<option value=\"$catagory\" >$catagory</option>";
  }
}
echo "</select>";
?>

</form> 

[sijis]

i'd use sessions.

so in your selectgroup.php page you'd do something like this:

<?php
session_start();

$s_catagory = $_REQUEST['catagory']; // correctly spelled would be category

echo $s_catagory; // should echo catagory selected in previous form
?>

then in your other php page you'd start off doing the same thing.

page3.php

session_start();

$s_catagory = $_REQUEST['catagory']; 

// do something with $s_catagory session

?>

hope that helps.

references
http://www.php.net/session_start
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.predefined.php

[raouleduke]

I got it to partially work it displays the values with echo, but does not run the query.

session_start();
$s_catagory = $_REQUEST['catagory'];
$DOWNDATE = $_REQUEST['DOWNDATE'];
echo $s_catagory;
echo $DOWNDATE;
	mysql_connect(""); 
	mysql_select_db(""); 
	$query = "SELECT * FROM $s_catagory WHERE HOLD LIKE 'N' AND FOLLOWUPCONTACT LIKE 'N' AND DEACTIVATE LIKE 'N' AND CALLER_ID = '6' AND DOWNDATE = $DOWNDATE ORDER BY CUSTOMERNAME ASC";
	$result = mysql_query($query);

[kevinsequeira]

add these two lines after $result = mysql_query($query);

echo $query;
if(mysql_error()){
print mysql_error();
}

this will help u debug.
also if DOWNDATE is not an integer, u should have the query as DOWNDATE='$DOWNDATE'
ie in quotes

reg
kevin

[raouleduke]

I figured out where the problem was, it is on the previos page, I I don't know how to make it work, here is the code from the previous page, I believe it has to do with the link.

<?php
	session_start();
	$s_catagory = $_REQUEST['catagory']; // correctly spelled would be category
    echo $s_catagory; // should echo catagory selected in previous form
	mysql_connect(""); 
	mysql_select_db(""); 
	$query = "SELECT * FROM $s_catagory WHERE HOLD LIKE 'N' AND FOLLOWUPCONTACT LIKE 'N' AND DEACTIVATE LIKE 'N' AND CALLER_ID = '6' GROUP BY DOWNDATE ASC";
	$result = mysql_query($query);
	echo "<table border=1 bordercolor=#5E3964>\n";
	echo "<tr>
			<td><font color=#FF0000>Date</font></td>
		 </tr>\n";
	while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
	printf("<tr>
		<td><a href=\"index1.php?catagory=$s_catagory %s\">%s</a></td></tr>\n", $row["DOWNDATE"],
	$row["DOWNDATE"]);
	}
?>

[kevinsequeira]

should be like this

$DOWNDATE = $row["DOWNDATE"];
print("<tr><td><a href=index1.php?catagory=$s_catagory&DOWNDATE=$DOWNDATE>click here</a></td></tr>");

reg
kevin