[RESOLVED] Help with Storing Multiple Values in Variables

nickminute

Hello Guys, I am definitely a PHP/MySQL newbie and have an issue that I would really appreciate some help with.

I need the ability to bring up a list of products from a database (which is done.) I have all of these products listed in different checkboxes. I need the user to be able to select the products they would like to purchase, but have a way to store the selected products somewhere. The way that I was thinking (incorrectly, probably) is that I would store them in variables until I was ready to submit a confirmation summary and on the final page, store all of the values in my database.

I am OPEN to all options. If there is something easier that I haven't considered, please let me know. Below is an example of my html form with my database values being pulled into a checkbox list and the corresponding php page.

Thanks in advance.

two.php

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>

<?php
echo "<form action='form.php' method='post'>";

[COLOR="Red"]$host="correct"; // Host name 
$username="correct"; // Mysql username 
$password="correct"; // Mysql password 
$db_name="correct"; // Database name 
$tbl_name="corect"; // Table name 
$folder=$_COOKIE['folderGroup'];[/COLOR]

// Connect to server and select databse
mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); 
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");

$sql="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name WHERE folderID = $folder";
$result=mysql_query($sql);

// Define $color=1 
$color="1";

echo '<table width="500" border="0" align="left" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">';
while($rows=mysql_fetch_array($result)){

// If $color==1 table row color = #FFFFFF
if($color==1){
echo "<tr bgcolor='#FFFFFF'>
<td><input name='formDoor[]' type='checkbox' value='".$rows['productName']."' /></td><td><img src='folder-icon.png' /></td><td>".$rows['productName']."</td>
</tr>";
// Set $color==2, for switching to other color 
$color="2";
}

// When $color not equal 1, use this table row color 
else {
echo "<tr bgcolor='E1E1E1'>
<td><input name='formDoor[]' type='checkbox' value='".$rows['productName']."' /></td><td><img src='folder-icon.png' /></td><td>".$rows['productName']."</td>
</tr>";
// Set $color back to 1 
$color="1";
}

}
echo "<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td><input name='submit' type='submit' value='Continue' /><input name='reset' type='reset' value='Clear' /></td></tr>";
echo '</table>';


echo "</form>";

mysql_close();
?>
</body>


</html>

form.php

<?php
  $aDoor = $_POST['formDoor'];
  if(empty($aDoor)) 
  {
    echo("You didn't select any products.");
  } 
  else 
  {
    $N = count($aDoor);

echo("You selected $N products(s): <br />");
for($i=0; $i < $N; $i++)
{
 echo "<li>";
 echo($aDoor[$i] . "<br /> ");
}
  }
?>

sneakyimp

You might want to check out PHP session handling. The basic idea is that you can store any value you want in the variable $_SESSION and it will be available when you access the next page and the next page and so on until you destroy these values, change them, or the user's session ends (this happens in firefox when you close ALL of your browser windows).

e.g., to set the session var in your first script:

session_start(); // this tells PHP to start session handling
$_SESSION['selected_product_ids'] = array(1, 4, 6, 9, 25); // store some data

e.g., to access values previously set in session in your second page:

session_start(); // this tells PHP to start session handling
print_r($_SESSION['selected_product_ids']); // echo what's in the session var we set before
die();

If you want your customers to be able to close their browser or shut down their machine or otherwise leave and come back later and still see their selected products, you'll need to go through the trouble of creating a new database tables which associates products with a user id or a value that you store in a cookie. This is more difficult.