[RESOLVED] Delete multiple entries w/ Checkboxes

[Zoey]

I've got this page in which people can input their suggestions, and the information is stored on my server. To deal with these suggestions, I created a page (with the help of my friend Bill) which allows me to delete/edit suggestions. However, currently, the page will only delete one suggestion at a time.. but I'd like it to be able to delete all of the suggestions that are checked. Here's the code for the admin actions

	$row_del = (isset($_POST['sub_del'])) ? $_POST['sub_del'] : 0; 
	if(isset($_POST['sub_del']) || isset($_POST['sub_edit'])) { 
		foreach($_POST as $key => $value) { 
			if ( strpos($key, "id_") !== false ) { 
				$row_id = str_replace("id_","",$key); 
				if ($row_id > 0) break; 
			} 
		} 

sub_del is the button you click to delete entries.. sub_edit is the name of the button you click to edit entries.

Here's the code that actually deletes the entries

else if($row_del) { 
	foreach ($_POST as $id => $value) {
		  $query = "DELETE FROM polls WHERE id=$row_id"; }

And here's the code used to make the checkboxes that allow me to edit/delete a suggestion.

$maindiv.= "<input type='checkbox' name='id_".$row['id']."'>";

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get the script to allow multiple suggestions to be deleted at once? Thanks.

(If you need me to post more of the coding, just let me know.. I only posted what I considered the important snipits, but since this code isn't entirely mine, there could be more that I'm missing... thanks).

[bpat1434]

DELETE FROM polls WHERE $id='$firstid' OR $id='$secondid' etc. etc.

You'd create the query in a loop to get all the IDs....

[jasonok6]

Yep, basically make the name of each checkbox a name that looks like an array in php like this:

<input type=checkbox name=suggestion[1]>
<input type=checkbox name=suggestion[2]>
<input type=checkbox name=suggestion[3]>

Make the index value the same value as the suggesstion ID, in the example above the checkboxs would represent suggesstion with the id of 1, 2 and then 3.

When you post back to your script these checkbox values will can be accessed just like an array. So you could do the following:

foreach ($_POST[suggestion] as $key => $value) 
		{
			$query = "delete from suggestions where id = $key";  

		}

[Zoey]

All of the checkboxes are created at once though.. how would I do that while still keeping it an array?

And would I have to change the id_ elsewhere if I change the name of the checkbox.. and how would I do that if I had it as an array? (like in the top code I posted above).

Thanks for your help... sorry I'm kind of new at this.

[bpat1434]

THis:

$maindiv.= "<input type='checkbox' name='id_".$row['id']."'>";

becomes:

$maindiv.= "<input type='checkbox' name='ids[]' value='".$row['id']."'>";

Then, after submission you do thsi:

$query = "DELETE FROM `table` WHERE";
$i=0;
foreach($_POST['ids'] as $key=>$id)
{
  if($i>0)
  {
    $query .= " OR";
  }

  $query .= " id='".$id."'";
  $i++;
}

So your query ends up looking like:

DELETE FROm `table` WHERE id='1' OR id='2' OR id='5' OR id='7'

Which will delete all rows where 1 of the id tests are correct.

Then, just run the query....

[Zoey]

Alright, now I'm getting all kinds of crazy error messages saying things like.. parts of the code are broken in which all I said is </td>.. so I'm pretty sure I did something wrong in the part you showed me.

I changed the second part of my first post to

else if($row_del) { 
	$query = "DELETE FROM 'table' WHERE"; 
	$j=0; 
	foreach($_POST['ids'] as $key=>$id) 
	  { 
  	    if($j>0) 
  		{ 
    		$query .= " OR"; 
  		} 
 	  $query .= " id='".$id."'"; 
	  $j++;          

	 }
    } 

Was that not the way to do it?

[bpat1434]

1.) Is "table" the name of the table?
2.) What are the exact error messages

Implement this code and tell me what it gives you:

else if($row_del) { 
	$query = "DELETE FROM 'table' WHERE"; 
	$j=0; 
	foreach($_POST['ids'] as $key=>$id) 
	  { 
  	    if($j>0) 
  		{ 
    		$query .= " OR"; 
  		} 
 	  $query .= " id='".$id."'"; 
	  $j++;          

	 }
         echo $query.'<br>';
    } 

[Zoey]

1.) Is "table" the name of the table?

Ah, that was part of the problem. The other was a function that was interfering with the rest of the code. Everything's fixed now.

Thank you very much for all your help!

[Zoey]

Ack, ok nevermind. I thought I had it, but for some reason I'm having another problem. I changed the code so that the checkbox code is

$maindiv.= "<input type='checkbox' name='ids[]' value='".$row['id']."'>";

And to delete multple comments is:

else if($row_del) { 
	$query = "DELETE FROM polls WHERE"; 
	$j=0; 
	foreach($_POST['ids'] as $key=>$id) 
	  { 
		  if($j>0) 
		  { 
			$query .= " OR"; 
		  } 
 	  $query .= " id='".$id."'"; 
	  $j++;		  

	 }
	}

But now its not letting me edit comments.

I think it has something to do with the remaining:

	if(isset($_POST['sub_del']) || isset($_POST['sub_edit'])) { 
		foreach($_POST as $key => $value) { 
			if ( strpos($key, "id_") !== false ) { 
				$row_id = str_replace("id_","",$key); 
				if ($row_id > 0) break; 
			} 
		} 
	} 

since the checkbox is no longer called id.. but no matter what combination of ids[] I try to change the id to, its still not allowing me to edit my comments.

Any idea what I should fix the id_ to?

[bpat1434]

if ( strpos($key, "id") !== false ) {
$row_id = str_replace("id","",$key);
if ($row_id > 0) break;
}

Needs to be:

if ( $key == "ids") {  

	foreach($_POST['ids'] as $key2=>$row_id)
	{
		if($row_id>0) break;
	} 
} 

I'm not sure what this accomplishes....
Basically, now your checkboxes are all an array. So $POST['ids'] is an array:

$_POST['ids'] = array('all', 'of', 'the', 'checkboxes', 'values', 'are', 'each', 'an', 'array', 'element');

So you need to loop through it again to get the values..... And strpos() doesn't work any more because you're dealing with an array, not a string.