fill the form fields automatically

NoBullMan

Hi,
I have a form and want to allow users who have already filled the form and have an ID to enter the ID and have the form filled based on the info stored in a table.
On top of the form, I have:

<input type="text" name="id" value="">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>">Go!</a>

At the beginning of the file:

if (isset($id) && $id != "")
{
  $query = "SELECT * from Customers WHERE CustomerID= $id");
  $result = mysql_query($query);
  if(mysql_numrows($result)>0) 
  {

"how do I set the field values, select values, etc. here?"

  }
  else 
  {
    echo '<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
	      alert("The Customer ID you entered could not be found. Try again or fill out the form.")
		  document.info_form.id.focus();
		  </script>';
  }
}

I am new to PHP so if you see flaws in coding, please let me know.

TIA.

drew010

in all the form fields, you can do something like this:

and when you do the select, you can assign variables from the database to those names. if the query does return a row, the values will be filled in, and if not the variables will be blank and evaluate as
<input type="text" name="whatever" value=""> in the html page.

so if you know the rows, you can do

if (mysql_num_rows($result)) {
    $data = mysql_fetch_array($result);
    $whatever = $data['whatever'];
    $name = $data['name'];
    $email = $data['email'];
}
else {
    //javascript alert....
}

NoBullMan

Thanks Drew.
I am having some problem setting this up. I believe I have a syntax error. I have:

if (isset($_GET['cid']) $cid=$_GET['cid'];
(Use cid to get info from database, $FirstName=$data['FirstName'], etc.)

<form name="thisform" method="post" action="somefile.php">
<input type="text" name="cid" value="">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?cid= ?>this.form.cid.value">Go!</a> (SYNTAX ERROR!)
<input type="text" name="FirstName" size="30" tabindex="1" value="<?php echo $FirstName ?>" />
<input type="text" name="LastName" size="30" tabindex="1" value="<?php echo $LastName ?>" />
...
</form>

drew010

yeah, it is this:
if (isset($GET['cid']) $cid=$GET['cid'];

forgot the second closing )

if (isset($GET['cid'])) $cid=$GET['cid'];

NoBullMan

Sorry, I copied the code wrong!
the syntax error is on this line:

<input type="text" name="cid" value="">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?cid= ?>this.form.cid.value">Go!</a>

NoBullMan

I resolved this issue by using two forms instead of one. If the user has an ID and enters it, the input field is in a different form than if he doesn't have one and has to fill out the form.
The problem I have now is that when I get a value from the database that corresponds to a SELECT or CHECKBOX field, I don't know how to use the values to make the SELECT box show the right choice or the CHECKBOX to show a checkmark or not.