[Resolved] How do I check if a checkbox is checked?

[AJPayne]

Hey,

Well here is the problem I am having.

First, Let me show you the PHP code I have so far:

<?php

$username = "username";
$password = "pass";
$database = "db";

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");


$company_name      =	"'".$_POST['company_name']."'";
$company_url           =	"'".$_POST['company_url']."'";
$contact_first	=	"'".$_POST['contact_first']."'";
$contact_last	=	"'".$_POST['contact_last']."'";
$contact_email	=	"'".$_POST['contact_email']."'";
$address_1		=	"'".$_POST['address_1']."'";
$address_2		=	"'".$_POST['address_2']."'";
$city			=	"'".$_POST['city']."'";
$zip			=	"'".$_POST['zip']."'";
$state			=	"'".$_POST['state']."'";
$country		=	"'".$_POST['country']."'";
$established	=	"'".$_POST['established']."'";
$phone			=	"'".$_POST['phone']."'";
$fax			=	"'".$_POST['fax']."'";
$info			=	"'".$_POST['info']."'";
$type			=	"'".$_POST['type']."'";
$cp				=	"'".$_POST['cp']."'";
$support		=	"'".$_POST['support']."'";
$payment		=	"'".$_POST['payment']."'";


if($_GET['action'] == "add")
	{
		$query = "INSERT INTO host (host_id, company_name, company_url, 
contact_first, contact_last, contact_email, 
address_1, address_2, city, zip, state, 
country, established, phone, fax, info, 
type, cp, support, payment) 
VALUES ('', $company_name, $company_url, 
$contact_first, $contact_last, $contact_email, 
$address_1, $address_2, $city, $zip, $state, 
$country, $established, $phone, $fax, $info, 
$type, $cp, $support, $payment)";
		mysql_query($query);
	}

mysql_close();

?>

And here is the signup page that this script belongs to:

http://www.findagoodhost.com/host_signup.php

Now everything works fine, till I reach the checkboxes (starting at "platform supported").

How do I insert the corresondong checked values in the db? I have 1 field ('platform') in the host table, and I need to place all the checked values in that field. So how do I do that in the code above?

I was thinking of doing something like, if the Visa check box has been checked:

if (isset($_POST['paymentVisa']) && $_POST['paymentVisa'] == 'checked')

where paymentVisa is the name of that checkbox.

but I don't know where to put that code, and how to add the other checkboxes should they've been checked.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thank you

[tsinka]

Hi,

if someone checks e.g. a checkbox named "thebox" the variable $_POST['thebox'] will be set. It will not be set if the checkbox named "thebox" wasn't checked.

So

if (isset($_POST['thebox']))

is sufficient to check if the checkbox named thebox has been checked.

Use

isset($_POST['platformX'])

to check which platforms have been checked and store the values in the platform column separated by e.g. a underscore or something else.

But I'd suggest to rename the checkboxes so that the values are submitted as array for each section. This makes it a lot easier to deal with the data.

Additionally you might think about using id's instead of e.g. platform names for the checkbox names.

Hope this doesn't sound too complicated.

Thomas

[AJPayne]

well thing is that the checkboxes that belong to a group (for example the payment options), are not really groupped together in the html. What I mean is that they aren't in a group as they would in a radio group for instance. So I'm still struggling in making those checkboxes act as a group, so php would know exactly which set of chexboxes belong to which 'group.'

As far as the array you were talking about, no I am not really familiar with them. Mind if you give me a pointer, or gimme a link of a tutorial? maybe if you could show me how to do it with 1 set of a group of checkboxes, I can take care of the rest.

I'll really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot for all your help

AJ

[tsinka]

Hi,

here's an example (for the platforms). I just woke up ... hope I don't have too much typos in my code.

On top of the script:

<?PHP
  // available platforms as array (either static or built from table data
  // if the possible platforms are stored in a table)
  $arrPlatform = array(1 => 'Windows',2 => 'Linux',3 => 'FreeBSD',4 => 'Apple');
  $arrCheckedPlatforms = array();
  $platforms   = "";


  if (isset($_POST['Submit2'])) {
    // form submitted
    if (isset($_POST['platform']) && is_array($_POST['platform'])) {
      // at least one platform
      $platforms = implode("_",$_POST['platform']);
      $arrCheckedPlatforms = $_POST['platform'];
    }

echo "checked Platforms: $platforms<br>\n";    
// then do some form validation stuff and insert data into database
// $platforms contains the value to be stored in the platform column
// Use explode('_',row['platform']) to get an array of selected
// platform array keys when fetching the records after a SELECT
  }
?>

Change the form tag to

<form name="form2" method="post" action="<?=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>">

if the form ist posted to the script itself. You don't need the action=add GET parameter in this case because you can check if the Submit2 button has been pressed.

Inside the form in the platform section:

              <tr>
                <td><div id="search_text">
                    <div align="left"><strong>Platform Supported</strong></div>
                </div></td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td height="5"></td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td><table width="100%"  border="0" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                    <tr>
<?PHP
while (list($key,$value) = each($arrPlatform)) {
  $checked = "";
  if (in_array($key,$arrCheckedPlatforms))
    $checked = " checked";

echo <<< EOHTML
                      <td width="25%">
                       <div align="left">
                          <input type="checkbox" name="platform[$key]" value="$key"$checked>$value
                        </div>
                      </td>
EOHTML;
}
?>
                    </tr>
                </table></td>
              </tr>

Ok, so far there seem to be no errors, I tested it on my server.
Do the same for the other sections.

You can shorten the code a lot (using only one while loop for all sections) but I wonder if that would improve readabiliby of the code.

Thomas

P.S.: Please edit the line with the long SQL query in one of your posts and shorten it a little bit. This thread is hard to read because of that long line.

[AJPayne]

Hey there,

Sorry I haven't gotten back at you earlier, but I just finished formatting my hard drive and installed everything back.

When I try to implement it on the page, I get an error on line 647, which is:

echo <<< EOHTML

Thank you soo much for your time and effort helping me, I really appreciate it.

-AJ

[tsinka]

Hi,

the most common cause for this are whitespaces.
Make sure that none of the lines
echo <<< EOHTML
and
EOHTML;

have any whitespaces at the end of line. They must end with EOHTLM/EOHTML;

Thomas

[AJPayne]

yup that did it thanks 😉

However now when I submit the form, I get the text on top of the page:

checked Platforms: 2_3

which is fine for now (meaning the form has been submitted successfully).

But when I check the db, nothing got stored. Not even the other fields that were working before this new implementation.

Any ideas?

thanks

[tsinka]

Hi,

maybe a SQL error. Please post the script (attached as file) so I can see what might be wrong. I think you're almost there 🙂

Thomas

[AJPayne]

I think so too thanks to you 😉

As requested, find attached the host_signup.zip file (which has the host_signup.php file since it didn't let me attach a .php).

Thanks

[tsinka]

Hi,

find attached the modified script. I wasn't able to test it, I hope that there are no errors in this script.

Please let me know what the INSERT query looks like. I inserted a line that prints the SQL statement.

Thomas

[tsinka]

Sh....

I found one error:

replace

$val = "'".mysql_escape_string($val),"'";

by

$val = "'".mysql_escape_string($val)."'";

Edit:

I'm using a variable twice:

Change

$fields = implode(",",$fields);
$query = "INSERT INTO host (host_id, time, $fields) VALUES ('', $time, $values)";

to e.g.

$fieldlist = implode(",",$fields);
$query = "INSERT INTO host (host_id, time, $fieldlist) VALUES ('', $time, $values)";

Or change the $fields variable to $arrFields in the code which would be more accurate.

Thomas

[AJPayne]

Hey thanks a bunch.

After editing your file as you said, I get those queries after I submit the form:

checked Platforms: 2_4
INSERT INTO host (host_id, time, company_name,company_url,contact_first,contact_last,contact_email,address_1,address_2,city,zip,state,country,established,phone,fax,info,platform,type,cp,support,payment) VALUES ('', '1092252779', 'gfdgfd','gfddfg.hgf','hgfhfg','hgfhgf','hfhf','','','','','','-- Select The Location Of The DC --','-- Select A Year --','','','','2_4','','','','')

However when I check the db, all the fields I inputted got stored except for the platform (the checkboxes). the field is empty for that entry.

Hehe very close.

I tried to fix it myself, but to be honest with you I did not understand anything you wrote lol.

Well I just noticed that the field in the db is spelles 'platform' (without the 's') and you wrote it in the file with an 's.' Could that be the problem?

Thanks again mate 😉

-AJ

[tsinka]

Hi,

only the variable is called $platforms and looking at the query it seems to contain the selected platforms (2_4).

What type is the platform column in the table of ? One of the int types ? If yes -> change it to varchar.

Thomas

[AJPayne]

Hey,

It is of the type ENUM:

`platform` enum('Windows','Linux','FreeBSD','Apple') NOT NULL default 'Windows',

change it to varchar? if yes, varchar(7) would be good right?

Thanks

[tsinka]

Hi,

in this case a varchar(7) should be sufficient (as long as there are less than ten platforms to store).

Thomas

[tsinka]

By the way ... the enum type is a bad choice if you want to store more than one platform in a column since the enum type only allows you to store one of the enum elements in the column at a time.

The modification to your code was:

1) move the code that does the $platforms stuff inside the isset($_POST['Submit2']) part of the code.
2) since most of the table columns and the POST variables have the same name I chose to create an array containing the POST/column names.
First I looped through the values of the array and created the value list using the array values as POST variable names.
Second I created the field list by concatenating the array values with , by using implode.

btw ... there's no form validation in your script.

Thomas

[AJPayne]

It works perfectly now 😃

Thank you soo much.

N ow in the db, it get stored as 2_3. So to find out which platforms those are, I just write:

explode('_',row['platform'])

correct?

Well thank you again for your help 🙂

-AJ

[tsinka]

Yes,

something like:

  $arrSelected = explode("_",$row['platform']);

  echo "Selected platforms:<br>\n";
  for ($i=0;$i<count($arrSelected);$i++) {
    echo $arrPlatform[$arrSelected[$i]]."<br>\n";
  }

Thomas

[AJPayne]

Hey, it doesn't seem to work.

It just echoes the first line:

Selected platforms:

but not the platform selected...

hmm

[tsinka]

Hi,

you need to have

$arrPlatform = array(1 => 'Windows',2 => 'Linux',3 => 'FreeBSD',4 => 'Apple');

somewhere in front of that code ...

Thomas