Advise from all please

datona

I was wondering if I could get some advice from all those professional PHP'ers out there.
I have a registration page (php) which has one section where it asks what there sports interests are. There is about 25-30 different options and they all have a checkbox beside them. Here is the code:

<tr font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
<td width="1%">&nbsp;</td>
<td id=normal colspan="3"><font size="2"><b><font color="#000066" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sports 
you enjoy watching or participating in:<br>
</b> 
<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" bordercolor="#000066" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr> 
<td width="4%"> 
<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Auto racing" <?php if ($Sports[0] == "Auto racing") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="20%"><font type=arial size=2>Auto racing</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Cricket" <?php if ($Sports[1] == "Cricket") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Cricket</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Football" <?php if ($Sports[2] == "Football") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Football</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Soccer" <?php if ($Sports[3] == "Soccer") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Soccer</font></td>
</tr>
<tr> 
<td width="4%"> 
<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Baseball" <?php if ($Sports[4] == "Baseball") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="20%"><font type=arial size=2>Baseball</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Diving" <?php if ($Sports[5] == "Diving") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Diving</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Golf" <?php if ($Sports[6] == "Golf") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Golf</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Squash racquetball" <?php if ($Sports[7] == "Squash racquetball") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Squash/racquetball</font></td>
</tr>
<tr> 
<td width="4%"> 
<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Basketball" <?php if ($Sports[8] == "Basketball") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="20%"><font type=arial size=2>Basketball</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Extreme sports" <?php if ($Sports[9] == "Extreme sports") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Extreme sports</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Hockey" <?php if ($Sports[10] == "Hockey") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Hockey</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Tennis" <?php if ($Sports[11] == "Tennis") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Tennis</font></td>
</tr>
<tr> 
<td width="4%"> 
<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Bowling" <?php if ($Sports[12] == "Bowling") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="20%"><font type=arial size=2>Bowling</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Figure skating" <?php if ($Sports[13] == "Figure skating") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Figure skating</font></td>
<td width="4%">  

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Olympic sports" <?php if ($Sports[14] == "Olympic sports") echo "CHECKED" ?>>
</td>
<td width="21%"><font type=arial size=2>Olympic sports</font></td>
<td width="4%"></td>
<td width="21%"></td>
</tr>

What I have works ok and it puts it into an array using:

$new_Sports = implode(",", $Sports);

and then saves to the database field

BUT, what I am not able to do is properly allow the client to EDIT that information because I am not able to explode the information to be able to populate an edit page.

Can anyone help me out here as I am at witts end and have tried everything to make this work.

Thanks alot in advance!

rich_d

Hi,

I hate to say this - but the process you've got is fundamentally flawed at the moment. It's all fine right up until you implode the sports array into one string. Why? because the sports array will only be populated by the sports they've actually ticked, right? So for one user you might have:

football,rugby,tennis

and for another you might have:

tennis,snooker

There is no correlation between the location of the data in the string and which checkbox it originally came from. The only way you could do it would be to create a checkbox who's name is the selected sport, something like:

for ($i=0; $i < count($sportsArray); $i++) {
  echo "<input type=checkbox name={$sportsArray[$i]} checked>";
}

Then when they re-submit the form you just build a new sportsArray from what they submit (one's they un-check will get automatically removed).

However what I think you're after is that the user see's the same options again - but the ones they picked are ticked, right?

One (quite nasty imho) way of doing this is in the original form - don't use one Array for all the sports. Give each checkbox a unique name - and then check to see if it was ticked or not. If not place a 0 (or something) into the string, if it was place a 1. So it might look like:

1,0,0,0,1,1,0,1

(etc)

Then at least you can perform the reverse very easily - if there was a 1 then it was checked, otherwise leave it.

Personally I'd re-design this so that each sport was a unique field in the database, but hey - that's your choice 🙂

Cheers,

Rich

datona

Thanks rich_d for the option.
As I am not an expert at PHP and I am still in the newbe/beta stages, I would like to then ask a really dumb question....

How would those lines of code be able to re-populate a table full of checkboxes with the ones in the database checked?

for ($i=0; $i < count($sportsArray); $i++) {
  echo "<input type=checkbox name={$sportsArray[$i]} checked>";
}

How would some who checks on say football,rugby,tennis have only those ones checked BUT I would like all the options to still be available for them to check if they 'edit' there profile?

| X football | 0 soccer | X rugby | X Tennis |

How could I use your code to have only the three checked because I still want them to be able to have the others show so if they want to edit, they can.

datona

Rich, one quick question...

If I do it like you suggest (which I can see this working out good, I was wondering if there is any way of doing the following:

If I save it in a table like:

1,0,0,0,1,1,0,1

Do you know if there is any way to re-format it so that I can say:

"The sports that you are interested in are: football, rugby AND tennis "

What I am asking is if I could format it so that it could add a comma after each on BUT the last one would be 'AND'

rich_d

Hi,

Okay here's a perhaps more tidy way to present ALL of the checkboxes but only tick those that are set to a 1 in the database:

$sports = array("football","tennis","rugby","snooker","swimming");

for ($i=0; $i<count($sports); $i++) {
  if ($sportsSelected[$i] == 1) {
echo "<input type=checkbox name={$sports[$i]} checked>{$sports[$i]}<br>";

  } else {
echo "<input type=checkbox name={$sports[$i]}>{$sports[$i]}<br>";
  }

}

$sportsSelected = an array based on your mySQL field (full of 1,0,0,1,etc) (i.e. explode it based on the comma).

To pick up which ones they checked just do:

if (isset($_POST['tennis'])) {
  $tennis = 1;
} else {
  $tennis = 0;
}

And then collect all your sports together into one string for population in the SQL.

This code is off the top of my head but should work. Post if you've questions about it.

Cheers,

Rich

leatherback

Hi,

One annoying thing with creating a field for each spport is that you waste a lot of database space. You only need to register the sports which are selected.

I'd create a table sports: id, sport
and a table selected: id, SportNr, UserNr
and a table Users.

You can then select all sports for a user which are selected:
select sports.sport, sports.id from sports, selected, users where sports.id = selected.sportnr and selected.usernr = $userid

The same can be done for all the fields that are not selected, but then of course you select where sports.id NE selected.sportnr.

You can then create checkboxes from each list. One checked, the other not checked.

Saves a lot of database storage, and is a much neater way of database design.

rich_d

True, I didn't want to complicate matters at this stage though - he said he was a beginner 🙂

Also with your suggestion there is a certain trade-off point beyond which it makes no difference to the performance (if anything it'd be slower). For example if you run the kind of site where you know that 90% of your visitors are going to pretty much tick every box - that's a mass of data that could be more efficiently stored. But this is 100% specific on each case. Personally, I'd do it the way you suggested.

Cheers,

Rich

leatherback

Yes. Agreed. It will most likely be slower. On the other hand.. How about adding sports to the database.. In the first case, you add an immense amount of data to the database. In "my" suggestion you only add one row to a description database.

Also, added advantage of a description table.. You change the description once, (As long as you use it consequently in all scripts!) and in all your pages the descriptions change.

Anyway.
Merely variations of an option.

Cheers,

Jelle.

Weedpacket

It's a lot of messing about still.

One could go right back to the original code, calling the checkboxes $Sports[].

Imploding is the same as before (with ',' or some other character not otherwise used).

Exploding into the array $Sports is the same as you'd expect (i.e., on the same character the array was imploded with).

Now, when filling out the form, to check a box for a sport (e.g., Bowling) only if it's in the $Sports array:

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Bowling" <?php if (in_array("Bowling", $Sports)) echo "CHECKED" ?>>

A more sophisticated approach would see a new table in the database, with one record for each sport selected for each registrant. But that's database normalisation and a topic for another thread...

datona

First off, I would like to tell you all that I really appreciate all the help that is coming in on this. I have always found that this site is full of very helpfull people and that admitting to be a newbe is not shunned apon. That is great!

Weedpacket, from what I understand, I do like this idea that you have with using:

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Bowling" <?php if (in_array("Bowling", $Sports)) echo "CHECKED" ?>>

I was able to get this implemented and working great.

I would like to say THANKS to all you out there that brought suggestions to the table.

datona

I opted to use Weedpacket's coding and it seems to work great except for one thing.
When they go to the edit page where it query's the database and if there are none checked and the 'sports' database field is empty, I get this:

Warning: Wrong datatype for second argument in call to in_array in /home/virtual/site109/fst/var/www/html/member_templates/profile2.php on line 783

This is the coding I am using for my checkboxes:

<input type="checkbox" name="Sports[]" value="Bowling" <?php if (in_array("Bowling", $Sports)) echo "CHECKED" ?>>

Is there something I am doing wrong here?
Thank you

rich_d

Yeah because the sports array doesn't exist so you're feeding in_array a null value.

Try this:

Cheers,

Rich

datona

Thank you VERY much everyone. I have now been able to get this all working.

Weedpacket

I should have seen that 🙁

I'd make one suggestion beyond rich_d's, and that is instead of looking to see if $Sports is an array for every checkbox, make sure it's an array first.

I.e., before listing the checkboxes:

if(!is_array($Sports))
    $Sports = array();

Then it will be an array every time (even if only an empty one).