accessing variables

chintupintu03

Hi all,

I am facing a small problem. There are three forms. On first form, I am accepting values from user. These values I am passing to next form, to generate a query from database. The records are displayed to user and depending upon the selection from user, the user clicks the submit button.

I want to process the tables in database, as per the records selected by the user in the second form.

Now my problem is, should I use another form to do the processing OR can I do the processing in the second form itself?

When I try to use the third form, how do I pass the values accepted on the first form from the user in the third form ?

Norman_Graham

Hi Chintupintu

It's really up to you. I personally like doing all the passing and processing in one script, so I use $_PHP_SELF and re-display the form with the user's variables. Once the data is acceptable, I then allow the form to disappear and the processing / insertion to take place invisibly. The user simply gets a message (and an e-mail) saying, "Cool, thanks for your time." or "Sorry, seems to be a bit of a problem today".

I like this because I have everything in one, admittedly quite large, block of code and there's no posting and getting from and to other scripts. The only include is the form-processing class which I borrowed and adapted from Web Dev. The other nice feature is that I can just copy the entire block of code and slap it into a new website, adding and removing as required - this way I can set up a new user interface very quickly without fiddling around with separate scripts.

HTH

Norm

chintupintu03

Hi Norman,

Thanks for the reply.

Let me explain the requirement in detail.

On first form, I am accepting the magazine, issue of the month, date, remarks.

Depending upon the magazine and issue of the month, I am displaying the list of members to whom the copy is not yet dispatched. Alongwith the names, I am showing the checkbox against each name, so that the user can select all OR selective names for current selection.

After submitting the form ( clicking a button), the entry for current dispatch entry is to be INSERTED, subscriber entry is to be MODIFIED for the accepted values on the first form.

Can u elaborate ur explanation in context to above details ?

little more explanation about the query

On the first form I am accepting "days" in the field "cdays". ( and other values also).
These I am passing to next form for processing. ( as per above details). In this second form, I am using statement ;

This value is "echoed" on the third form. ( which is fixed value assigned) But how do I use the variable name " (cdays) " for passing.

Norman_Graham

Hi Chintupintu

Like I say, you can integrate all these processes into one script. When the script starts, you check whether the user has already used the form and submitted by doing:

<?php
if ($sent)
{
//start processing
}

else
{
?>

<!--whole bunch of HTML with the empty form-->

<?php
}
?>

The script keeps pointing back to itself because you put $_PHP_SELF in the action parameter and POST in the method parameter. When the user enters some stuff and clicks on "Submit", your script recognizes that the form has been altered and submitted and starts the processing. You can then have a series of if clauses which check whether the form has been used properly:

<?php
if (empty($myfieldvar))
{ echo "Fill in the field, you fool!"; }
?>

<!-- whole bunch of HTML with the form and the values submitted by the user hitherto-->

<?php
else
{ $dbsubmit_myfieldvar = htmlspecialchars($myfieldvar); }
?>

Once everything is as you like it, you can then echo a success message while your script inserts the stuff into the DB in the background.

HTH

Norm