[RESOLVED] 2 Submit Buttons

Clarkinator

I have 2 submit buttons in my form but I have no idea how exactly to make them both work. 1 of them shows a table below the form, which is gathered from the details in the form that the user entered and the 2nd imports it into a MySQL database. How would I go about implementing this 2nd button so that it would actually show the table below it. I have the MySQL one working fine.

TheoGB

I think you'll have to show some code because my first answer is to make the the button run the same code you do to show the table but after you've done the MySQL action.

Clarkinator

Right then. Ill make some code up for it.

<!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>
<form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="test.php">
  <table width="200" border="0">
    <tr>
      <td><p>LastName:</p>
      <p>
        <input type="text" name="lastname" id="lastname" />
      </p></td>
      <td><p>FirstName:</p>
      <p>
        <input type="text" name="frstname" id="frstname" />
      </p></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2"><input type="submit" name="button" id="button" value="Submit" />
      <input type="submit" name="button2" id="button2" value="Submit" /></td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</form>
<?php
//My connection to the MySQL db and db stuff
?>
</body>
</html>

Clarkinator

What I want to do is be able to place the table showing in that code as well while the code is able to determine what button I pressed but I don't know how to do that.

Clarkinator

If the 2 on the one page arn't possible is it possible to link 1 to 1 page and the other to another?

dagon

look at the post array, it will be populated with the button name, in your case either "button" or "button2"

Clarkinator

How do you mean post array. I don't understand as I'm quite new to this and have been learning as I go and no-one that I know could help me with this.

TheoGB

There are two types of request: GET or POST. GET requests would be where you have variables in the URL. There's one here in this thread right now:

showthread.php?p=10952423#post10952423

That's setting the variable 'p' to 10952423

Now you can get hold of this variable in your PHP like this:


if (isset($_GET['p'])
    $p = $_GET['p'];
else
    $p = 0;

When you submit a form you set the type of request it's making:

<!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>
<form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="test.php">

And as you can see, you've set the method here to be 'post'.

This means that when your user clicks one of your buttons:

      <td colspan="2"><input type="submit" name="button" id="button" value="Submit" />
      <input type="submit" name="button2" id="button2" value="Submit" /></td>

You'll get a the value associated with the button in the $_POST array with the name of the element in that array named the same as the 'name' value on the HTML input, like so:


if (isset($_POST['button'])
    $button1 = $_GET['button']; // Will actually be 'Submit'
else
    $button1 = "not pressed";


if (isset($_POST['button2'])
    $button2 = $_GET['button2']; // Will also be 'Submit'
else
    $button2 = "not pressed";

The error in your syntax is to give each button the same value but different names. Presumably right now you will be seeing two buttons, both with 'Submit' written on them.

Instead give each button the same name but a different value:

      <td colspan="2"><input type="submit" name="submit_button" id="button" value="Choice 1" />
      <input type="submit" name="submit_button" id="button2" value="Choice 2" /></td>

and then your PHP will be more like:


if (isset($_POST['submit_button'])
    $button = $_GET['submit_button']; // Will be 'Choice 1' or 'Choice 2' depending on what they pressed
else
    $button = "No Choice";


// Note that you'll also have:
$firstname = $_POST['firstname'];
$lastname = $_POST['lastname'];

Clarkinator

So that would allow me to check if the button was pressed, where would I enter the my PHP code blocks after it checked if the button was pressed?

Sorry if I have so many questions but this concept has me confused in PHP. I used to work with VB and that was easy to code but this is a lot harder.

TheoGB

The code I've put there for dealing with the buttons goes into 'test.php' since this is where the form is posting its data.

It sounds like you wish to keep using the same page as you want the form to display and data to appear beneath it, so I'm guessing the example code you showed is the file 'test.php'.

In that case you want to put that code here:

<?php
//My connection to the MySQL db and db stuff
?>

In that code block you essentially you want to:

use a PHP block to check if there's a value in 'submit_button' variable
if there isn't you don't need to do any more processing as we can assume they're entering the page for the first time without submitting any form data
if submit_button has been pressed then you need to look at what choice has been picked. It sounded to me like you wished to either run Choice 1 (to show the table below the form) or Choice 2 (to update the database) followed by Choice 1 (to show the data below the form). So in this case you need to stick your logic in for that.

You could use a switch statement to deal with your choices but leave out the break statement in the following form:


switch($button)
{
    case 'Choice 2' : // do choice 2 stuff to update database
              // Note no break; statement so we drop through to Choice 1
    case 'Choice 1': // Do table display stuff.
}

Clarkinator

Ok then. When I tried to implement this, it didn't work for me. The buttons stopped working at all.

What I am thinking is that the case is inside the php or outside since I have no idea either way and if the case needs anything before it either.

Sorry about all the questions but I am rather new to php and need the information in a tutorial sort of manner that I would be able to read.

Clarkinator

Ok after going through someone elses code, I got it to work. But I have 1 more issue with it. Is it possible to set the form values above from the PHP script below since if I click any button, it refreshes the page and all my values are gone and placed into the php but not showing up in the HTML part.

cretaceous

if you 've made the value '$frstname' explicit,
otherwise:
<input type="text" name="frstname" id="frstname" value="<?php echo $_POST['frstname']; ?>" >

(if using "POST" method - otherwise $_GET['name'])

bradgrafelman

Also note that you should use something like [man]htmlentities/man if placing the user-supplied data directly into your HTML.

Clarkinator

cretaceous;10952722 wrote:
<input type="text" name="frstname" id="frstname" value="<?php echo $frstname; ?>" >

if you 've made the value '$frstname' explicit,
otherwise:
<input type="text" name="frstname" id="frstname" value="<?php echo $_POST['frstname']; ?>" >

(if using "POST" method - otherwise $_GET['name'])

While this works, it renders the reset button useless. So if there is a way to do it that on the button click of the Submit1 then it shows the details, but the reset button still works? I'm probably asking for stuff thats a little too complex for the language though.

bradgrafelman

Clarkinator wrote:
While this works, it renders the reset button useless.

Not really - the reset button still does exactly what it's supposed to do... reset the form values back to their original values as when the form was first rendered.

Clarkinator

Well then the reset button doesn't empty the fields so in my terms its useless. I also have no idea what you were talking about with htmlentities() so it had me confused.

I was hoping that with the check for button press, it would set the fields instead of having to modify the value of it in the HTML bit. But I suppose thats a bit advanced for PHP?

bradgrafelman

Clarkinator;10952749 wrote:
Well then the reset button doesn't empty the fields so in my terms its useless.

The reset button is just that - it resets form fields back to their default state. If you've set non-empty default values for the fields in the HTML, then you can't expect the reset button to do something it's not supposed to.

Saying the reset button is useless because it doesn't clear the fields is like saying an apple is useless because it isn't an orange. If you want a button that sets form fields to an empty value despite any default values specified in the HTML, you'd probably have to use a bit of Javascript to do that.

Clarkinator wrote:
I also have no idea what you were talking about with htmlentities() so it had me confused.

That function properly escapes characters that might have special meaning, for example a double quote gets replaced with " so that it doesn't cause parsing errors with yur HTML if a user were to use that character.

Clarkinator wrote:
I was hoping that with the check for button press, it would set the fields instead of having to modify the value of it in the HTML bit. But I suppose thats a bit advanced for PHP?

Not sure what you're asking there, but PHP has no idea what a button is, let alone when one might get pressed. PHP is a server-side language while what you're descrbing is client-side behavior.

Clarkinator

Probaby do need to use Javascript in this. Now to figure out how to make the code to do just that... I would have to go elsewhere to find out how wouldn't I?

bradgrafelman

Clarkinator;10952752 wrote:
I would have to go elsewhere to find out how wouldn't I?

Not necessarily... you could always start a thread over in the ClientSide Technologies forum for help with a Javascript function to clear the values of form fields when a button is clicked.

Might want to give an example of the form you're using, too. Note that writing a very generic/all-encompassing Javascript function to empty out all form elements might not be as straightforward/simple as one thinks, since there are a few different types of form elements (text boxes, textareas, checkboxes, radio buttons, <select> dropdowns, <select> multiple choice, etc. etc.) so it's not as simple as setting "obj.value" equal to an empty string.