Checkbox values

flash-genie

I am saving numerous values to a database.

and would like some thoughts, if I have

then when I save the value of foo, should it save true if its "ticked"?

Also when I reload the variables, if the value I saved was true I want to make it checked, do I need to use an if else statement along these lines:

if($myVar=="true"){
echo"<input type="checkbox" name="foo" checked value="true">";
}else{
echo "<input type="checkbox" name="foo" value="true">";
}

or is there another way?

Also what type should I use in my database, im currently using varchar(5) and passing true or false, is there a boolean type affair I could use?

I would appreciate any enlightenment I can become.

Its tough being nOOb.

Thanks for any help!

Taff

devinemke

i assume that you are using mySQL. this topic comes up alot. mySQL does not have a specific BOOLEAN column type. there are several options for this but what I ususally use is a CHAR(1) field that defaults to NULL and use "Y" for true and NULL for false. another option is to use an ENUM field with 2 values or a TINYINT fileld and use 1 or 0.

the way you are doing (using a VARCHAR(5)) is probably the worst way as it requires the most amount of storage.

flash-genie

Thanks for answering,
sorry about the late reply, but other things jumped the priority queue.

That sounds like the way I will do it then.

The other part of my question was the if else conditional, it seems like a long winded solution, I store "Y" in the mySQL database, then I grab said data with PHP, check to see if Y is true, in which case I set the box to checked, also if my checkbox has a value="Y" , then that will suffice to be sent to the database when the user clicks Save?

Thank you again for your help!

devinemke

in PHP, strings that are empty or set to "0" are considered FALSE, everythging else is considered TRUE, so it doesn't really matter what you checkbox value is set to as longs and there is something there other than "0".