How to use php to retrieve data from table and display it in formatted way in web pag

[sanoop]

I want to know what is the procedure needed to execute MySQL queries while clicking on a hyperlink in a webpage.

For eg.I have a table containing 3 columns 1.Slno(primary key) 2. Authors 3Books. Now in my website one page displays the alphabet listing, one each for authors and books. If I click one letter in the authors, I should get list of authors whose name starts with that letter. If I click the letter in the alphabet listing of Books, I should get list of books starting with that letter. As a second step in the authors listing, if I click one author I need to get the listing of books in formatted way.Thanks in advance.

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Sanoop

[thorpe]

Without seeing any existing code, I'll give an example. For an alphabetic listing of books make a php page called books_alpha.php, then, make your links something like....

<a href="books_alpha.php?by=A">A</a>

Then... on books_alpha.php

<?php
  // connect to db.
  if (isset($_GET['by'])) {
    $sort = $_GET['by'];
    $result = mysql_query("SELECT name FROM books WHERE name LIKE '$sort%'");
    if ($result) {
      while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        echo $row['name']."<br />"
      }
    }
  }
?>

A pretty simplified example, but hopefully you'll get the idea. You could just as easily create all this on one page, and just pass what yoiu want to sort by through the url aswell. eg; list.php?sort=books&letter=A

[sanoop]

Hi Thorpe,
That was pretty quick. Thanks a lot for the information.I am just a novice in PHP(actually just 1hr old:🙂 ).Will catch along...:🙂

Greatly appreciating your response dude..

Signing off..
Sanoop