call php function from link (embeded in javascript?)

bhoward3

i believe it is not possible to do this as simply as i would like but perhaps someone can lead me in the right direction

the page i am writing about contains a link with a dynamically generated href, no problems with this part of it. when the user clicks that link i would like to update a field in a table of a mysql db (this field is a datestamp).

i have a function written in php that updates the record as required, and it works fine if i test call it from within the html ie <?php callfunction()?>

i would like to call this function when the user clicks on the link.

from what i understand you cant really do this and need to use javascript instead. so is there someway to wrap my php update script into a javascript so that i dont need to worry about the hassles of controlling the db with javascript for this one little function, then i would simply use an onclick to call the javascript

thanks for any direction

paulnaj

Hi,

Yeah, what you need to do is to send a 'message' back to the server with the link. This message can be received by the same page that generated the links. Or, another page can handle the input into MySQL ... whatever suits.

Here's a template ...

<html>
<head>
	<title>Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<table>
	<tr><td><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>?link=1">Link 1</a></td></tr>
	<tr><td><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>?link=2">Link 2</a></td></tr>
	<tr><td><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>?link=3">Link 3</a></td></tr>
	<tr><td><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>?link=hello">Link hello</a></td></tr>
</table>
<?php
if(isset($_REQUEST['link'])){
	// Do what you want with the value sent in the link variable
                // Update fields, query or whatever
	$sql = 'UPDATE table 
SET field="whatever" 
WHERE link="'.$_REQUEST['link'].'"';
echo '<hr><pre>'.$sql.'</pre><hr>';
}
?>
</body>
</html>

Hope that helps you to see your way through!

Paul.

bhoward3

thanks this is right on track, the only thing i am not sure about with this solution is that the link should actually go to a different page, that page may be different, i would like to avoid adding the php function to each of the landing pages, would the solution be to put the redirect within the function instead of on the link itself?

thanks