Drop down insert problem

smerchant

Hi,

I am very new to programming and especially PHP. I am trying to make a selction from the drop down list to insert into MySQL database. I managed to populate the drop down list from the database, but when i make a selection to insert it, nothing happens. I don't even get the error message. Can someone please review my code. I really need some help.
thanks in advance!

<html>
<head>
<title>FORM: PROBLEM LOG</title>
<h2><font face="ariel"><font size=5>Problem Log</font></h2>
</head>
<body>
<?
if($submit) //If submit is hit
{
$Conn = mysql_connect("localhost","root","smsmvv");
mysql_select_db("fms", $Conn);
$sql="INSERT INTO fms_tbl_activities (JK_Key) VALUES ('$_POST['JK_Key']')";
$query = mysql_query($sql) or die ("Cannot query the fms database.<br>" .mysql_error());
echo "Database Updted.";
} else {
?>
<?$Conn = mysql_connect("localhost","root","smsmvv");
mysql_select_db("fms", $Conn);
?>

</form>
<?php
}
?>
</body>
</html>

dnast

Doesn't look like it's being posted. Try changing:

smerchant

I tried that still nothing. When I click submit nothing happens. any other ideas?

thanks!

tbach2

$submit is not the same thing as $_POST['submit'].

I see a little confusion regarding $POST. $POST is how your script receives variables, ie

if($_POST['submit']) {

your code,

 if ($_POST = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

works but is not correct. Use a different variable than $_POST here. You get variables from post; you don't assign variables to it.

smerchant

Yes, Originally it was $myrow instead of $_POST. I was just trying to see if that made a difference.

I changed it back, but result is still the same.

tbach2

What is the value of $submit?

It never has a value if register globals is off. See previous post and the sticky notes in this forum.

smerchant

Thanks so much...I could have never figured that out.

I inserted the following to my code: (it works now but I don't know if this is the best way to go)

<?if (!ini_get('register_globals')) {
$types_to_register = array('GET','POST','COOKIE','SESSION','SERVER');
foreach ($types_to_register as $type) {
if (@(${'HTTP' . $type . 'VARS'}) > 0) {
extract(${'HTTP' . $type . 'VARS'}, EXTR_OVERWRITE);
}
}
}
?>

dnast

I don't think all of that was necessary 🙂

I think what tbach was trying to get you to do was simply assign a value to $submit and use a variable other than $_POST to store records in.

$submit = $_POST['submit'];

would be placed before your "if ($submit)"

And one way of doing your select box loop would be:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT JK_Key FROM fms_tbl_jk"); 
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { 
  echo "<option value=\"".$row['JK_Key']."\">".$row['JK_Key']."</option>";
}

I have to say that your solution to this was very unexpected and was quite the workaround, though!

tbach2

woah, that's a mouthful. Don't defeat the purpose. As the programmer, you should know what variables to expect. So before you do any action with your script you should "purify" your variables.

if no cleaning is needed, such as the case with $submit, just

$submit = $_POST['submit'];

If the variable is an integer, then

$int_var = (int)($_POST['int_var']);

and so forth. This way you can make sure a malicious user does not insert some evil code in the variable.

smerchant

Hi all,

Thanks for all your help. It makes sense now what is being said. However, I tried replacing that patch of code with just applying a value to the submit variable:

$submit = $_POST['submit'];

...but now I get the message that database is updated but the JK_Key value is still '0' in the database.

Any clues?

tbach2

I have no idea what your code looks like now. I guess I should have also referred you to the sticky post about debugging. Is the query you are sending to the database the same as what you think you're sending?

$sql="INSERT INTO fms_tbl_activities (JK_Key) VALUES ('$_POST['JK_Key']')";

print "DEBUG: query=$sql";

$query = mysql_query($sql) or die ("Cannot query the fms database.<br>" .mysql_error());

Need to know that before I can help much 😕