[RESOLVED] trying to copy data from record and merge to another - not working

[peanutgallery83]

A little background...

I have a database of names (addresses, etc) that was created by importing information from two sources. Unfortunately, some of the data (names, etc) are duplicates (ex: John Smith has 2 records). I'm now trying to clean up the database to eliminate the duplicates. Adding to the mix, each of "John Smiths" records contain parts of data that are "more accurate," so its not as simple as deleting 1 record and leaving the other.

I have written a script that displays all names in the database where a duplicate exists. The name with the lower "ID" need to have the address, city, state, zip, phone, and email fields copied FROM it, and essentially pasted TO the record with the higher ID - leaving all other fields in the higher ID record untouched. I have created a button next to the name on the list, so when clicked, I want it to automatically perform this action between those two semi-duplicate records.

The script I've written to do that looks like this...

// HANDLE MERGE
if(!empty($_GET['mergeID'])){

$db = myDatabase::getInstance();
$sql = "SELECT * FROM classlist WHERE FirstName='$_GET[mergeFirstName]' AND LastName='$_GET[mergeLastName]' AND ID!='$_GET[mergeID]'"; 
$result = $db->Execute($sql) or die($sql."<p>".$db->ErrorMsg());

  $copy_ID = $row['ID'];

  // LOAD THE RECORD WITH A HIGHER ID BASED ON THE SEARCH PERFORMED ABOVE
  if(is_numeric($_GET['mergeID']))
	$data->loadById('$copy_ID');

  // UPDATE WITH GET VALUES FROM LOWER ID RECORD
	$data->Address1=stripslashes('$_GET[mergeAddress1]');
  $data->City=stripslashes('$_GET[mergeCity]');
	$data->State=stripslashes('$_GET[mergeState]');
	$data->Zip=stripslashes('$_GET[mergeZip]');
	$data->Phone=stripslashes('$_GET[mergePhone]');
  $data->Email=stripslashes('$_GET[mergeEmail]');
}
  $data->save();

What I am trying to do here is
1) Load the record with the lower ID field (the ID is transferred as part of a GET)
2) Load the record with the higher ID field (essentially by finding the duplicate name WHERE id != $_GET['mergeID'])
3) Copy the Address1, City, State, Zip, Phone, Email fields from the lower ID record, TO the higher ID record.

Thus far I've had no luck and am getting a little frustrated. There are no error messages, the script just doesn't do anything.

Any advice??

If I'm on the complete wrong track, could you please get me headed in the direction I need to be going? Maybe I'm making this too difficult!

Thank you in advance!

[examancer]

I see tons of problems with the way you are attempting to embed variables within strings. Some of your attempts may work, and some most certainly won't, but they are all bad practices.

First, PHP generally won't parse $array[key] within a double quote string unless its contained within {braces}. Even thats not enough to fix your issue though because the syntax is all wrong... where are the single quotes around the string array keys? Why are you trusting GET inputs and putting them directly in your SQL? You know that is a huge security hole, right? SQL injection and all that...

Your strings should look more like:

$sql="SELECT * FROM table WHERE id=" . $_GET['SomeID'] . " AND field='" . $_GET['somefield'] . "'";

That still doesn't solve the problem of SQL injection, so you should be passing your inputs (like your $_GET[] vars) through something like mysql_real_escape_string() before they ever make it into your SQL query.

$data->loadById('$copy_ID');

What is that?!?! You do know that PHP doesn't parse anything within single quotes, right? You are simply passing the loadById() method a string with the contents "$copy_ID", not the actual value of $copy_ID. You repeat this invalid syntax with all of your $_GET[] vars as well.

Sounds like you need to learn some basic PHP debugging procedures as well. Didn't you think to try echo'ing out your SQL query when you started having problems? You should have immediately noticed your variables are not being parsed as expected. Echo everything until its working.