Need help with querying a database with an argument in a hyperlink

JUMC_Webmaster

I'm working on a calendar script which looks at a table full of calendar events, and returns all the events for the day that the user clicks on from the calendar page. The script that generates the links on the days of the calendar uses this line to generate the URL

[FONT=courier new]<a href=\"showdate.php?date=$data\" alt=\"$qr_num event(s)\" title=\"$qr_num event(s)\">$day</a>"[/FONT]

The URL is created to pass an argument (the date stored in $data) to showdate.php.

In my file 'showdate.php', I have a select query

[FONT=courier new]jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = $date");[/FONT]

$date is the variable passed by clicking on the link.

When I click on the link, I get an error stating that there was a problem running the query. Could it be that my problem is that "date" is a reserved word when running my select query?

DeltaRho2K

If your variable $data in your URL is where your date is stored, then you should change this

jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = $date");

to this:

jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = $data");

Although some people have said using the name "date" as a field name can be problematic, I personally haven't had that problem... Some people will tell you one thing, others will tell you differently...

You probably should change the field name though, just to remove that as a possible problem from the equation...

JUMC_Webmaster

I'm not sure if it was clear in the initial post, but the call to showdate.php is in a separate file called calendar.php. Will this change your initial answer?

Pittperson

Originally posted by DeltaRho2K
If your variable $data in your URL is where your date is stored, then you should change this

jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = $date");

to this:

jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = $data");

Although some people have said using the name "date" as a field name can be problematic, I personally haven't had that problem... Some people will tell you one thing, others will tell you differently...

You probably should change the field name though, just to remove that as a possible problem from the equation...

Since he is storing $data in $date wouldnt his query work correctly?

for my blogging tool, I have a link like:

<a href=\"editpost.php?e=$post_row[id]\">

and my query in editpost.php is:

$post_row = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM weblog WHERE id=\"$e\"",$db));

I have no problems with that??

Pittperson

Originally posted by DeltaRho2K
jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = $date");

try:

jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = \"$date\"");

JUMC_Webmaster

Escaping the quotes around "$date" did the trick. I'll consider this issue as being resolved, and if I have problems with laying out the data in a table, I'll just start a new thread.

DeltaRho2K

Yeah Pittperson, I completely missed that...

At any rate, instead of escaping the double quotes, you should be able to just single quote the variable like so:

jquery("SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE date = '$date'");

It really doesn't matter, either way, but the single quotes look cleaner in the code...