Ooober noob

chedz

Hello everyone,

I've been programing cobol for the last 10 years so this is all pretty new to me.

I have some questions on how to structure the code and where to write what in what.

Here's what I want to do:

Basically setting up a very basic an online ordering system. (just for a test program)

(I have a laptop with PHPDEV installed, it runs fine, I have a mysql database on it, php and apache running fine. This is acting as my server)

I want to write a screen that selects data from one mysql table (Products) and shows the contents in a table on the screen, this bit I've done in PHP.
Then next to each row on the table, have an input box "Qty" and a "buy" button.

When "Buy" is clicked, insert a row into the "orders" table, with a unique order num as the primary key and a "product_code" from the display table and the "qty" from the input box on the screen.

what I'm not sure about is where I write what and in what. What do I write in PHP and what in HTML, perhaps all in PHP?

Do I write functions in PHP and call them, I would like to reuse any SQL type code I might write on other screens.

Perhaps someone could explain how to:

Put a button at the end of each row in the table:
Write which bit in what
code up the buy button to pass the value from the table (product_code) and Qty into an insert SQL statement.

Here's what I have so far:

<?php

$pkbutton = "<button><font face = "arial", size = "2">Buy</font></button>";

$db_host = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$db_name = "testglc";
$conn = mysql_connect($db_host, $username, $password);
Mysql_select_db($db_name, $conn) or die("You Thick bastard");

if (!$conn) {
echo "An error occured.\n";
exit;
}

$sql= 'SELECT * FROM testglctab';

$result_set = mysql_query ($sql);

$rows = mysql_NumRows($result_set);

echo "<TABLE borderColor=blue cellSpacing=2 width=100 border=2>";
echo "Parts currently available:";

echo "<TBODY>";

for ($j=0; $j < $rows; $j++) {
echo "<TR>";
echo "<TD>";
echo mysql_result($result_set, $j, "company_name");
echo "</TD>";
echo "<TD>";
echo mysql_result($result_set, $j, "Product_type");
echo "</TD>";
echo "<TD>";
echo mysql_result($result_set, $j, "Product_sub_type");
echo "</TD>";

echo "<TD>";
echo mysql_result($result_set, $j, "Price");
echo "</TD>";
echo "<TD>";
echo mysql_result($result_set, $j, "Num_in_stock");
echo "</TD>";
echo "<TD>";
echo mysql_result($result_set, $j, "Prod_desc");
echo "</TD>";

echo "</TR>";

}
echo "</TBODY>";
echo "</TABLE>";
?>

I don't understand really how PHP and HTML work together.

Thanks a lot anyone for an tips for an old man.

😃

Chedz

Kudose

Since you're new to PHP and want to jump in head first, I recommend that you look into Object Oriented PHP Programming using classes and such. It will allow you to reuse alot of your code like you are wanting.

Also, you can jump in and out of PHP and HTML like so:

<?php $name = 'Tom'; ?>
Hello <?php echo $name; ?>! How are you today?
<?php $response = 'Fine'; ?>
I am doing <?php echo $response; ?>, thank you!

As you can see, it isnt a very good example and is kind of childish, but it should show you how you can switch between the two languages.

As good practice, always use <?php to open your PHP. Not short tags like <? or <?=. That will make your code more portible across servers.

Try to make it a habit to use as few queries as possbile and make the server, not DB, do the rest of the work.

i.e.

<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr><td>Product</td><td>Price</td></tr>
<?php
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table";
$query = mysql_query($sql);
$rows = mysql_num_rows($query);

if($rows > 0)
while($fetch = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
  echo '<tr>';
  echo '<td>'.$fetch['product_name'].'</td>';
  echo '<td>'.$fetch['product_price'].'</td>';
  echo '</tr>';
}

?>
</table>

Instead of a bunch of mysql_result. Very rarely do you ever use mysql_result.

The dot '.' allows you to concatenate strings. I used it inthe example above to elimiate the need for multiple echo statements.

One last thing, cause I am a horrible teacher...

On if statements, you do not have to use curly braces if you are only executing one command after it.

i.e.

//this works
if(1 == 1) // always true
 echo 'True!';
else
 echo 'False!';

//this causes a parse error

if(1 == 1) // always true
 echo 'True!';
 echo 'I told you!';
else
 echo 'False!';

//this is proper
if(1 == 1){ // always true
 echo 'True!';
 echo 'I told you!';
} else
 echo 'False!';

Hope that helps a little...

chedz

Thanks Kudose,

can anyone give me answers to more of my questions please:

Put a button at the end of each row in the table:
code up the buy button to pass the value from the table (product_code) and Qty into an insert SQL statement.

wreed

Question is do you want someone to code this or do you want to learn?

To do a button you need to know HTML form processing, obviously you would have a <input type="button"> in a cell at the end of the table row.

What is going to be tricky is catching the whole row that you click the button on. Someone else might help you on that.

If you know HTML read up on Forms....cause that should tell you how to add a button in HTML.