putting checkbox values into a db

Jeremiah

I have many checkboxes, about 24, and I'm trying to loop through each one and stick them into a db. As it stands now, my code is only sticking the last checkbox into the db, that is to say, (array of checkboxes is called choices[])
if i click choices[5], choices[9], and choices[14], the only value added to the db is choices[14] how do i get them all in there?

Additionally, what I really want is to have each array element to have its own variable, say choices[0] would be $room1, and choices[1] would be $room2, and so on and so forth. So, how do I assign the individual elements to individual scalars, and then, add each value, whether it is empty or not, to the db? Does that make sense?
Thanks in advance for the help, the relevant code is below.
-stu


foreach ( $neighborhood as $a ) 
{
$temp = $neighborhood;
$neighborhood = $a;
foreach ($adType as $b)
{
$temp2 = $adType;
$adType = $b;
foreach ($choices as $key => $value)
{
$temp3 = $choices;
$choices = $value;
$query = "INSERT into $tableName4 values ('$neighborhood', '$adType', '$choices', '$printAd')";
$choices = $temp3;
} 
$adType = $temp2;
} 
$neighborhood = $temp;
}
?>

kevinsequeira

<?php
foreach ($neighborhood as $a){
  foreach ($adType as $b){
    foreach ($choices as $key => $value){
      $query = "INSERT into $tableName4 values ('".$a."', '".$b."', '".$value."', '".$printAd."')";
				echo $query."<BR>";
    } 
  } 
}
?>

what do u get ?

reg
kevin

seanmayhew

Im having problems following your code so here is one that I have working. This is a article/category database basically each article can belong to many categories so I first select all of the categories from the database to create the checkboxes with the category ID assigned to their value. Then I insert into a table that just holds or is assigned an articleID and a CategoryID in a many to many relationship.

The Form that displays the checkboxes:

$cats    = mysql_query('SELECT categoryID, categoryname FROM category');
while ($cat = mysql_fetch_array($cats)) {
$cid = $cat['categoryID'];
$cname = htmlspecialchars($cat['categoryname']);
echo("<input type='checkbox' name='cats[]' value='$cid' />$cname<br />\n"); 
}

The insert statement:

$sql = "Insert IRRELEVENT INSERT STATEMENT"; 
if(@mysql_query($sql)){ 
	$cats = $_POST['cats']; 
	$aid = mysql_insert_id(); 
if ($cats == '') $cats = array(); 
$numCats = 0; 
foreach ($cats as $catID) 
	{ $sql = "INSERT IGNORE INTO articleLookUp SET aid=$aid, cid=$catID"; 
		$ok = @mysql_query($sql); 
		if ($ok) 
			{ 
			$numCats = $numCats + 1; 
			} 
			else { echo("<p>Error inserting article into category $catID: ".mysql_error().'</p>'); 
			} 
	}

Jeremiah

Originally posted by kevinsequeira

<?php
foreach ($neighborhood as $a){
  foreach ($adType as $b){
    foreach ($choices as $key => $value){
      $query = "INSERT into $tableName4 values ('".$a."', '".$b."', '".$value."', '".$printAd."')";
				echo $query."<BR>";
    } 
  } 
}
?>

what do u get ?

reg
kevin [/B]

I'll try that. I figured I needed to use the temp variables to preserve the value of the $neighbood, $choices and $adType arrays. I'll have to try this when I get home though.

but it looks like the same as mine, absent the temp variables, right? Let me try and see.

kevinsequeira

right u dont need to use temp variables. if u run into problems, debug by printing out your insert query and see what its actually doing

reg
kevin

Jeremiah

Originally posted by kevinsequeira
right u dont need to use temp variables. if u run into problems, debug by printing out your insert query and see what its actually doing

reg
kevin

That did what mine did, but was much cleaner, I like it. This is what was printed out to my screen:


INSERT into housingFour values ('Adams Morgan', 'Wanted to Rent', 'parking', 'this is your entry dog!')
INSERT into housingFour values ('Adams Morgan', 'Wanted to Rent', 'studio', 'this is your entry dog!')
INSERT into housingFour values ('Adams Morgan', 'Wanted to Rent', 'dishwasher', 'this is your entry dog!')
The query was successfully executed!

What ended up happening was that each time through the foreach loop, everything was overwritten, which is ok for the items that the user only selects one for, but not for the third value, which should have multiple items.

I wanted the third entry to have all the values: "parking", "studio", and "dishwasher" instead, it only had "dishwasher" How do I get it to have all 3 - or more?

Also, perhaps I can just skip over that, because what I'll do eventually is have these things displayed in a table, and I think I want one 'amenity' per column. That way, when searching, the user can search to see if there are records that have all her selected "amenities." (When I say amenities, I am referring to the third value that had 'dishwasher' 'parking' and 'studio'.)

In such a case, do I need all the amenities in separate scalars, or, can they still be part of the same array, fill up a cell and still be searchable?

so one or two questions:

how to get all the values selected from the checkboxes (as that is how the amenities are set up) into one cell per record, and still be searchable,

AND/OR

how to get the 20+ elements from the amenities array into their own individual temp scalar like $dishwasher, $parking etc, in order to allow them to have their own column which will make the record more searchable...I think.

Thanks in advance. Apologies for taking so long to get to a clear question.