[Resolved] Failing Query and delname=%20name

San_John

Hi, I am creating a rather large project for school using PHP and I'm having some trouble getting a particular query to work.

When I print out various tables used in my database, I want to be able to also print out a link that loads another page that allows that row to be deleted. Before trying to implement this on my project, I'm trying to get it to work with a very tiny test database. The test database only has a firstname and lastname fields.

Thus, in showtable.php there is a loop that prints out all the fields as follows:

echo("<td>".$row["firstname"]);
echo("<td>".$row["lastname"]);
echo("<td><a href=\"administration.php?dbtable=names&delname=".$row[lastname]."\"> DELETE </a>");

delname is the name of the last name to delete.

Ok, so then administration.php gets called and it contains the following code:

<?php
$connection = @mysql_connect("localhost", "XXXX", "XXXX") or die("Death!");
$pickdatabase = @mysql_select_db("test", $connection)
or die("Database Connection Problem!");
$delquery = "delete from $dbtable where lastname=$delname";

echo("<a href=\"mysqltest.php\">Back</a>");
$runit=mysql_query($delquery, $connection) or die("Query failed");

Every time I run it, it prints out that the Query failed. But I noticed that the url for administration.php ends with "delname=%20lastname"

lastname being the lastname that was passed. The strange thing is that when I print out the last name it prints out the right name without the %20 Does anyone know where this %20 is coming from and...do you think that is why the query is failing? Is something wrong syntactically? Anyone else ever had this problem?

nemonoman

The %20 is being added to your URL to replace a space (HEX20) (see [man]url_encode[/man].

You expect URL to say
&delname=Smith

It actually says
&delname= Smith (note space

Which gets translated to
&delname=%20Smith

Steveo31

I see you have the @ symbol there in the queries, along with a die() statement. The @ will supress all errors, so I believe the die() is not needed. Take one or the other out.

Your syntax for the row is off too. You have:

$row[lastname]

Where as it should be

$row['lastname']

Also-

echo("<td>".$row["firstname"]); 
echo("<td>".$row["lastname"]);

I would think is outputting nothing, or somethin waaay off. Change the quotes inside the brackets to single quotes ' ' .

Where do the $dbname and $delname variables come from? I see the delname is something appended to the URL with "?delname=theNametoDelete", right? In that case, should you use the $_GET['lastname'] ?

I'm in the process of learning, but from what I know those are the errors that I see. If I am wrong, I really apologize.

nemonoman

Steve, PHP is much more forgiving than you are. However, I agree with all your points and recommend them to San_John as better practice.

San_John

You were correct nemonoman and Steve you were partially correct. Actually changing the " to ' makes no difference as far as I can tell, but I can see how it makes things less confusing, so thanks for the tip.

I got rid of the @'s before my mysql commands, but even so, the query continues to fail. Look closely at the command

$connection = mysql_connect("localhost", "XXXX", "XXXX") 
                                                  or die("Death!");
$pickdatabase = mysql_select_db("test", $connection) or die("Database Connection Problem!");

$_GET['delname'];
$_GET['dbtable'];

$delquery = "delete from $dbtable where lastname=$delname";
echo("$delname Deleted");

$runit=mysql_query($delquery, $connection)  or die("Query failed");

I added that echo("$delname Deleted"); phrase and it prints out the correct name. Is there something wrong with my SQL? It works from the command prompt, but of course there I'm not using variables.

nemonoman

add quotes:

NOT
$delquery = "delete from $dbtable where lastname=$delname";

BUT
$delquery = "delete from $dbtable where lastname='$delname'";

San_John

It worked! Thanks everyone.