Dynamic Dropdowns & Displaying Results

jjfletch

Hi,

I'm hoping someone here can help me. 😕

I have a database that has several entries per user. What I want to do is to:

1) Create a dropdown menu whose options consist of each journal entry date for that particular user, and

2) Once one of the dates is selected from the dropdown menu, I'd like to display the entry associated with that particular date.

I've managed to create the dropdown menu (code for retrieve.php pasted below):

[FONT=courier new]

<?php

require_once ('../includes/config.inc');
$page_title = 'View Your Journal Entries';
include ('../includes/header2.html');

?>

<script language="JavaScript">

</script>

<div id="mainarea">
<table width="700" height="400" border="1" bordercolor="#999999" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" cellpadding="10">
<tr><td valign="top"><h1>Your Journal Entries</h1>

<form action = "retrieve2.php" Method = "POST">
<select name="selObj" onChange="MM_jumpMenu('parent',selObj,0)">
<option selected>Select an Entry</option>

<?php

if (!isset($_SESSION['user_id'])) {

header ("Location: [url]http://[/url]" . $SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . dirname($SERVER['PHP_SELF']) . "../index.php");
ob_end_clean();
exit();

} else {

$uid = ($SESSION['user_id']);
$fn = ($SESSION['first_name']);
}

require_once ('../../../files/mysql_connect.php');

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM entries WHERE user_id='$uid' ORDER BY 'journal_DATE' DESC");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)) {
//notice the change in the url bellow
print '<option value="retrieve2.php?action=journal_DATE='.$row["journal_DATE"].'">'.$row["journal_DATE"];
print '</option>';
}

mysql_close();
?>
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="style1" valign="top"><a href="create.php">Create another entry</a>
</td></tr></table>
<?php
include ('../includes/footer2.html');
?>[/FONT]

What I can't figure out is how to achieve goal #2.

I know there's problems with the code (retrieve2.php) below, but can anyone tell me how to fix it? Thanks so much!

[FONT=courier new]

<?php

require_once ('../includes/config.inc');
$page_title = 'View Your Journal Entries';
include ('../includes/header2.html');

?>

<?php
if (!isset($_SESSION['user_id'])) {

header ("Location: [url]http://[/url]" . $SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . dirname($SERVER['PHP_SELF']) . "../../index.php");
ob_end_clean();
exit();

} else {

$uid = ($SESSION['user_id']);
$fn = ($SESSION['first_name']);
}

if (isset($_POST['selObj'])) {

require_once ('../../../files/mysql_connect.php');
$query = "SELECT journal_entry FROM entries WHERE user_id='$uid' AND journal_DATE={$_POST['selObj']}";
$result = mysql_query ($query);
while($row = mysql_fetch_array ($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
echo "{$row['journal_entry']}";
}}

?>

[/FONT]

mattvenables

OK, a couple things I noticed about the code:

Nothing is being posted to retrieve2.php. The MM_jumpMenu function that you are using isn't acutally submitting the form, it is just taking the URL from the "value" field of the selected date.

So, in the first set of php code, change the following line

print '<option value="retrieve2.php?action=journal_DATE='.$row["journal_DATE"].'">'.$row["journal_DATE"];

print '<option value="retrieve2.php?selected_DATE='.$row["journal_DATE"].'">'.$row["journal_DATE"];

I changed the variable being passed to "selected_DATE" to make things easier to understand. So now on to the next php script...

The following piece of code should be changed:

if (isset($_POST['selObj'])) { 

require_once ('../../../files/mysql_connect.php'); 
$query = "SELECT journal_entry FROM entries WHERE user_id='$uid' AND journal_DATE={$_POST['selObj']}"; 
$result = mysql_query ($query); 
while($row = mysql_fetch_array ($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) { 
echo "{$row['journal_entry']}"; 
}}

to:

if (isset($_GET['selected_DATE'])) { 

require_once ('../../../files/mysql_connect.php'); 
$query = "SELECT journal_entry FROM entries WHERE user_id='$uid' AND journal_DATE=" . $_GET['selected_DATE']; 
$result = mysql_query ($query); 
while($row = mysql_fetch_array ($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) { 
echo "{$row['journal_entry']}"; 
}}

You see, when you append the variable name to the URL (as you did in the first php) it is sent as a GET rather than a POST. And since the MM_jumpMenu function doesn't submit the form, the variables were just being GETted rather thant POSTed.

If you need any more help, or if this didn't work, let me know.

-Matt

jjfletch

Thank you thank you thank you!

mattvenables

ok, so the sql query is failing...., try changing this line:

$result = mysql_query ($query);

to:

$result = mysql_query ($query) or die(mysql_error());

mattvenables

sorry, forgot to explain, that will show the error, so you can see whats happening and why the sql query fails.