Database tutorial

dexterw

I read the database tutorial on this site

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql/1

and it was one of the better tutorials I've seen, but the author seemed to go off on tangents that made it hard to follow. He went over delete, update and sort options that should have been included in with the script he made available at the end of the tutorial.

It seems odd to go through all that trouble talking about it and not include it. It makes sense to be able to do these things in HTML from the Website, but instead you have to go into PhpMyAdmin and make your changes or deletes.

Can someone tell me how I can hack the add.html script to be able to modify, update and delete entries into the database from this HTML page?

Thanks.

bpat1434

Are you talking about the rest of his tutorial? Where he goes into detail with his form and how to do what he said before?

Updating & Deleting (part 7)

It's a fairly large tutorial, and I think you missed the fact that he has multiple pages, and it's not just in one page.

~Brett

dexterw

I got the other pages; setup, update, updated, insert, setup, index, dcinfo.

The setup.php, insert.php and the dcinfo.php works fine. I had to modify the index.php to change the silly horizontal display to vertical but it works fine too.

The update.php, updated.php are just blank pages. I see the form and table code but nothing is displayed, it's just a blank page.

Page 6 talked about being able to pull a specific record from the database, but I didn't see it in with the download. I can copy and paste it from tutorial page but put it where and how to use it? He tells how the code works but doesn't tell you how to make the code work.

The tutorial didn't say how to tie all these scripts together. There should have been a single html page in the download that linked all these codes together. One page where you could add a new entry, modify an entry or delete, sort, pull a specific record from the database - the works.

bpat1434

Umm... there is no one file that "pulls it all together". He has individual scripts that do exactly what they are named:

index.php - Gives overview of current database information
add.html - Sends form values to insert.php
insert.php - Inserts form field values from add.html into database
update.php - Gives list of database values that can be updated, posts to updated.php
updated.php - Updates record specified by udpate.php
setup.php - Sets up the demo database
dbinfo.inc.php - Contains all the database connection information

If you want a script to pull it all together, write it yourself? I mean, you're basically talking about something like:

<?php
// This would be index.php
$navigation = '<form action="'.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'].'" method="get">
<input type="submit" name="p" value="home">
<input type="submit" name="p" value="add">
<input type="submit" name="p" value="update">
</form>';

echo $navigation;

if(!isset(@$_GET['p']) || empty(@$_GET['p']))
{
  $_GET['p'] = 'home';
}

switch($_GET['p'])
{
  case 'home':
    include_once('oldindex.php');
    break;

  case 'add':
    include_once('add.html');
    break;

  case 'update':
    include_once('update.php');
    break;

  case default:
    include_once('oldindex.php');
    break;
}

echo $navigation;

?>

~Brett

dexterw

Is the update.php suppose to display something? Mine does not, it's just a blank page.

I have data in the database.

bpat1434

update.php doesn't display anything, updated.php does.. but only if you updated something in the database from update.php...

~Brett

EDIT
I found an author error... he forgot the method in the form declaration.

Open up "update.php" and look at the form declaration on line 22. Just add method="post" and you should be golden.

***NOTE: This author seems to rely on register_globals being on (seeing as he doesn't reference $_POST or $HTTP_POST_VARS but rather just the input names), so be careful if you're using this in "production". Newer versions of PHP will actually break this code seeing as register_globals defaults to off for security reasons.

dexterw

The author made an error leaving out method="post" from the Form action line, he could have made more. Even with the method=post put in, the script doesn't work or at least not as he implied it should.

On part 7 under Displaying The Update Page he shows the script with this in it - Space For Code. He explains:

"Where 'Space For Code' is in this script is where the code for the update page will go. This is, in fact, just HTML formatting for the output:"

He gives the code for the output and says this:

"As you can see, this code will output a standard form... "

I know you say that the update.php isn't suppose to display anything. So why have an HTML form with a submit button in the script? What did he mean by "...this code will output a standard form"? Where will the standard form be output to?

There's also a lot more code on this page that he assigns to the updating process. Where is all this code?

I see that he has a fancy bracket at the end of the While line - while ($i < $num) { and the closing bracket down below the ++$i; line, but these brakets aren't in the update.php script. Is this important?

The author implies that the user should be able to edit or delete a specific entry or record in the contact database using this script as part of an html form on a web page. Where else would you use an html form with a submit button?

At the bottom of the page was this -

In part 8, the final part of this tutorial, I will show you how to put the whole script you have created together.

Maybe my eyes are failing me, but I didn't see anything on page 8 that showed me how to put the whole script together.

bpat1434

Where you see "Space for Code" you put:

<form action="updated.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="ud_id" value="<? echo $id; ?>">
First Name: <input type="text" name="ud_first" value="<? echo $first; ?>"><br>
Last Name: <input type="text" name="ud_last" value="<? echo $last; ?>"><br>
Phone Number: <input type="text" name="ud_phone" value="<? echo $phone; ?>"><br>
Mobile Number: <input type="text" name="ud_mobile" value="<? echo $mobile; ?>"><br>
Fax Number: <input type="text" name="ud_fax" value="<? echo $fax; ?>"><br>
E-mail Address: <input type="text" name="ud_email" value="<? echo $email; ?>"><br>
Web Address: <input type="text" name="ud_web" value="<? echo $web; ?>"><br>
<input type="Submit" value="Update">
</form>

When he says "bring it all together" he means wrap it up for you, not tell you how to tie each page together. I agree, ambiguous and really misleading.

Okay, the brackes are in the update.php script (in the one you download) and the code for the forms is already there as well (where "Space for Code" was previously). If you're wondering what it does, it just increments it. You could also use:

for($i=0; $i<$num; $i++){ 
// THE CODE HERE
}

Update.php doesn't display any output from after you modify any form elements. Update.php is supposed to give you forms already populated with data, so you can modify the record and then submit that to Updated.php which will output "Successfully Updated" or something like that.

~Brett

dexterw

bpat1434 wrote:
Update.php doesn't display any output from after you modify any form elements. Update.php is supposed to give you forms already populated with data, so you can modify the record and then submit that to Updated.php which will output "Successfully Updated" or something like that.

So when I enter the url of the update.php file into my browser's address bar, I should see forms populated with data? This is what I thought, however the page came up blank. No forms populated with data, in fact - no forms, just nothingness, a blank white page.

I have the same dbinfo.inc.php and connect line in the update.php that's in my other php files and they work fine. So there must be a problem with this particular script.

I looked at the script in his tutorial and then at the script I downloaded. The update.php file that I downloaded did not have the fancy brackets, but the one in his tutorial did. So I added the brackets and was able to get an empty form displayed on the page.

So progress is being made, I am now able to see the form but must now try to figure out why data isn't populating it. There must be something else left out of the script or some kind of syntax error - something. I'm not a php guy, but I know when something isn't working correctly. I'm not an auto mechanic either, but I can always tell when my car isn't running right.

There's obviously a problem with this particular php file. Maybe the author inadvertently put a work-in-progress file in with the download pkg instead of the working script. Who knows, but if the script didn't work for me then it probably didn't work for others, only they may not have said so.

rincewind456

Having looked at the script I would say most of it won't work because it relies on register_globals being on, which since php4.2.0 has not been the case.

I would suggest you start with the simple tutorial in the manual, it will at least give you some idea of how to do things and points you to a list of further tutorials at the end, it also gets you used to using the manual as a first port of call when something goes wrong.

robbyjb

http://sitepoint.com
I have found their tutorials more reliable than some others I will not mention|