Fetching data from newly inserted fields

parminder00

I have a simple php form (company info) in which we add a company name and the owner and save it to a database. I also have an "add another field" button in there which adds another row to the database table in case you want to add some other info about the company. What I want to do is to display the newly added field/row in the form used to input the company info automatically when the field is added to the table.

Also, is there a way to display all the data, including the newly added field without calling each row.

I am a novice at this stuff, so any help is appreciated 🙂

tomhath

There are several ways to do what I think you want:

1) Insert the new row, reread all the rows and build the display.

2) Insert the row, redisplay all data that was posted without hitting the database again

3) Send the new data to the server without posting the form (Ajax, etc)

#1 is probably the easiest, because you'll be building the display the same way whether data was just added or not, but #2 isn't that much more complicated. Since you're just learning the technology, I suggest #1. Don't worry about the inefficiency of the extra database read, it's very fast. And you can always move on to #2 or 3 after you're more comfortable writing code.

parminder00

I think by row you mean a record. That is not what i want.

What I am looking for is to add a new column to the database and that being displayed automatically on the page without me having to add a line of code to the form.

rulian

What you want to achieve depends on how you laid our your database.
You cannot add another "column" to the database table without affecting the other rows that previously existed in that table. And you should never let a user determine your mysql table structures.

If you havent already, you should normalize your table to allow for additional "fields" to be assigned per company. A simple example would be :

Table Companies:
Comp_ID | Name | 
     1        | My Company
     2        | Another Company

Table "Comp_fields"
CF_ID | Comp_ID | Title | Value
  1       |     1         |  Address | 123 4th St
  2       |     1         | Website | www.mycomp.com
  3       |     2         |  Phone | 555 -5555

That way the number of fields each company can have is dynamic.
And if you want it to do it automatically then you are looking at some javascripting with AJAX