From form to mysql - My last attempt

wdermott

Good morning all,
To date I have spent a total of 9 hours attempting to get the worlds simplest html page to write a single value to the simplest possible mysql table using the minimal piece of php imaginable. I have tried every permutation of syntax, quoting and commands kindly suggested by your good selves, I have GLOBALS on in the ini file but NOTHING WORKS !! I have become so frustrated that I am seriously beginning to doubt the decision to go with php (which is silly because the problem must be with my html code, the printr statement makes it obvious that the $_POST array is not being populated when the submit button is hit but I cannot see why !!)
I throw myself on the patience and kindness of this board for the last time, below is my php and html code, any observations will be greatly appreciated. Even an "it should work" will indicate that perhaps I have other issues somewhere.

Insert_ANSI.php

<html>
<body>
<?php
$Description=$_POST['Description'];
print_r($_POST);
@ $db = mysql_pconnect('localhost', 'root', 'cilegon');
mysql_select_db('ansi');
$query = "insert into ansi(ansi) values ('".$Description."')" ;
echo mysql_affected_rows().' ANSI inserted into database.';
?>
</body>
</html>

ANSI.html

ednark

perhaps your version of PHP is not using $_POST.... older versions will use $HTTP_POST_VARS... sometimes in extreme cases you will be forced to go all the way to
$GLOBALS['HTTP_POST_VARS'] to find what you are looking for...

try :

print "<pre>";
print_r($GLOBALS);
print "</pre>";

this shows you everything you have to work with.... things in the $GLOBALS array are also accessable by their key alone... ie $GLOBALS['a'] == $a;

if you find $GLOBALS['HTTP_POST_VARS'] exists but not $GLOBALS['_POST'] then you have your solution

the <pre></pre> around the print_r is for sanity reasons when looking at such a large array...

hope this helps

wdermott

Thanks very much for that Ednarc. It has confirmed that both $HTTP_VARS_POST and _POST exist in the array, but the HTML will not populate it (under either IE and XP or Suse Linux 8.1 with Konquerer).

Pending a revelation from other readers I intend to officially give up and use .NET for this particular tool. The book on PHP and mysql won't be a total waste as I need to do some PHP scripting next semester, but my experience to date would indicate it isn't suitable for this particular real world app.

Would it be a mistake to label php in it's current stage of life as unstable? ie every new release breaks something from previous releases? It is very irritating to buy a book printed in the year it is purchased that contains code that will not run.

Anyway, enough whinging. Thanks very much everyone for the help. I shall put it aside fro a day or two.

Kind Regards,

Wayne McDermott

ednark

well first of all PHP is very stable.... looks like either the book you purchased was not the best.. or you forgot to copy over one very important line of code

where in your code are you actually sending off the SQL to be processed?

mysql_select_db('ansi');
$query = "insert into ansi(ansi) values ('".$Description."')" ; 
echo mysql_affected_rows().' ANSI inserted into database.';

you appear to select your database
then write your sql insert string into a variable
then as mysql how many rows were affected.

you need to actually ask mysql to process the directive in the string $query.. throw in this line before the mysql_affected_rows().

mysql_db_query($db, $query);

also remove the @... in php @ exists to suppress error messages... you may be ignoring a legit connection problem to your sql database.. while testing code you should usually leave off the @