if statement driving me crazy

xombie

Hi. First posting here. I know this answer must be easy, but I don't know what it is!

Here's the deal: I'm making a fantasy football site. In it, people choose their roster from pulldown menus. When submitted, the roster gets entered into a database -- but first, I want to make sure everything was selected correctly. Example: the two runningback positions aren't filled by the same player.

So. The database entry part works fine. The rostercheck doesn't. The following if statement seems problematic and I don't know why -- basically, the two variables always wind up being equal, even when my test echo statements show they are not.

if ($rb1==$rb2 || $rec1==$rec2) {
print error message
exit;
} else {
enter roster into database
}

Any insights? Thanks!

winzurf

According to the manual || has precedence over == so your statement probably evaluates as

if ($rb1== ($rb2 || $rec1) ==$rec2) { ...

try

if (($rb1==$rb2) || ($rec1==$rec2)) { ...

xombie

Thanks for the advice -- it sounded good and I tried it out -- but the problem still remains.

One other oddity -- and I don't know if this is related or not:

On the response page, though the variables were submitted via POST, I cannot retrieve them with $GET['vname'] command. I can use a $POST['vname'] command to retrieve the correct variable, but that seems backwards to me.

Regardless, the aforementioned equation problem still exists. Thoughts?

Thanks.

winzurf

You don't use POST to send and GET to receive, even if it sounds like that.
POST information is sent in a hidden format (ie you can't see it in the url) whereas GET information is appended to the url (usually appears as http://yoursite/yourform.php?foo=bar&position=runningback etc.).
So if you have the form set to POST then you have to use $POST to retrieve the values. Similarly if you use GET to send the data you have to use $GET to pick it up.

Regarding your test , the easiest thing to do is break down the problem until it works, then build it up again until it breaks, and also echo the components - I would tend to put stuff like this in.

echo("[".$rb1."][".$rb2."]".($rb1==$rb2)."<br>");

this will display the two values and then the result of the comparison.

If that still dowsn't help try

if("test"=="test" || "try"=="try") ... and variations to see if it behaves as you expect.

it pays to put delimiters around strings so you can see if they have space characters in them , otherwise use trim().

good luck

p.s. are you SURE you are using == and not = ? if($a=$b) is a common mistake

xombie

First -- thanks for clearing up the POST vs GET. That hit the nail right on my confused little head. 🙂

Now -- Also thanks for the suggestions re: the equations. I was using the ==, not the =. So that wasn't the case. I wound up recoding bit by bit, rebuilding the code with a test every step of the way, per your suggestions.

Now it works just fine.

I have no idea what's different, because the code is virtually the same exact code as before -- the only difference is the new parentheses which you had recommended. BUt that didn't solve the problem before, so I have no idea wha the 'problem' actually was. But it's working now so I'm not complaining.

On to bigger, badder tasks!

Thanks for your help.