Checkbox query

thalamus

Hi, hope this is in the right place. I have a php driven app with a mySQL backend, and the page displays a listing of records on a per-line basis. What I need to do is basically have a checkbox per line, user selectable (with a select-all checkbox at the top) for the user then to hit the 'edit' 'duplicate' or 'delete' buttons which will then act on the selected record(s). Although I can set up the checkboxes to be input types with an array in [], how can I then check through using php to retrieve the values of the associated record on that line? Is this possible with php or would I need to use a javascript function?

Thanks in anticipation 🙂

Weedpacket

Assuming the checkboxes are named "thingy[]" then the $POST (I'm assuming you're using a POST form) array will include $POST['thingy'][0], $_POST['thingy'][1].... each containing a value of a checked checkbox.

Give the checkboxes different value attributes because otherwise all you'll know is how many checkboxes were checked, not which ones.

thalamus

Weedpacket wrote:
Give the checkboxes different value attributes because otherwise all you'll know is how many checkboxes were checked, not which ones.

Thanks for the reply 🙂 So would that mean effectively that I set a do { } while loop to list the mysql records on the page and set an incremental counter and then set the checkbox values to be 'thingy[$myrec++]'? And would I then be able to pick up the other record values based upon the same principle of 'fieldname[$myrec]' ? Sorry to sound dense here, but the ultimate objective is to be able to pass the record information that relates to the line on which the checkbox is true. Thanks again 🙂

vwrabbit

I'm looking to do the same thing (or quite simililar). I have a page that is created from a query and I want to be able to select a user (using checkboxes) and show details from another table about that user. So check if checkbox of that user is checked and then get that user_id and pass it to new query and display it, get next user_id if more checkboxes, etc.

Thanks,

Tim

vwrabbit

Thought I had a work around, but it's still sticky. Basically passing what I need as value (user_id) in an array for the value of my checkbox.

thalamus

Yes I thought about that, but the problem is that if the db ID records are in the high order (perhaps several have been deleted so the first ID autoincremental would be like 200 or so) then when you run a for-next loop to check the checkbox[ID] it would take an age to go through the permutations 🙁

An alternative I was considering would be to set a counter at the start of each record display, then adding another array variable for the ID, and relating that to the actual DB ID, for instance something like:

$rowctr = 0;
if ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	do { ?>
	<td align="center"><a href="access.php?<? echo $tok; ?>&tp=prp&edit=1&rec=<? $boxctr[$rowctr] = $myrow["ID"]; echo $myrow["ID"]; ?>">Edit</a></td>
	<? } ?>
	<td align="center"><input name="chk[<? echo $rowctr++; ?>]" type="checkbox" value=""></td>
...
      <? } while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result));

Not tried this, but do you think using this in a $_POST loop of $rowctr could be a way to get it done?

Weedpacket

You could still use the ID field as the array index; it means that instead of using a while() loop or a for() loop to iterate through them, you'd use a [man]foreach[/man] loop.