Inserting Problem

[bulbul4u]

Hey all!
I have 2 database tables: users and act.
users table has id, username, password field. act table has actid, id(field from users table as a foreign key), activityname, description.

I am trying to insert data into the act table.

<?php
echo "The activity you entered was ".$POST['activityname'];
echo "<br />";
echo "The Description you entered was ".$POST['description'];
echo "<br />";
echo "The id for the username you entered was ".$_POST['username'];
?>

The above code echoes the answers but I am having problem to insert this data into the act table.
I tried:

$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO act(id,activityname,description) VALUES('$username','$activityname','$description')");

but it did not work.

please someone help me.

[bradgrafelman]

What does 'it did not work' mean? Did [man]mysql_query/man return boolean FALSE? If so, what is the error message returned by the MySQL server (e.g. via [man]mysql_error/man)? Are any PHP errors being shown (and, if not, did you verify that display_errors is set to On and error_reporting is set to E_ALL)?

EDIT: Also, where do you define the variables that you use in the INSERT query?

[BenGilbert]

$query = "INSERT INTO act VALUES('','$username','$activityname','$description')";
$result=mysql_query($query);

This is assuming that $username is in the #1 row of the table, $activityname is in #2, etc. the first insert is ' ' assuming you have an id row that will auto increment. if there are any other rows in the table you are not inserting into use ' ' in their place according to where they are in the table.

there are multiple ways to do this, this is just my suggestion, however without seeing all of your code, it is guess work, and this is assuming you gave your variables values as stated above.

[bradgrafelman]

BenGilbert wrote:

if there are any other rows in the table you are not inserting into use ' ' in their place according to where they are in the table.

I think you mean 'columns', not 'rows'.

Also, best practice is not to use an empty string but simply omit the AUTO_INCREMENT column altogether. You should always list the columns you're INSERT'int into in the query itself; otherwise it's hard to understand what the query is doing and it is vulnerable to being easily broken if the table schema ever changes.

[BenGilbert]

Sorry I did mean columns, and when omitting the AI column in the example I gave would it not place the value for $username into the first available column?

I am still learning as well, so just trying to understand myself.

would you need to do something like :

$query = "INSERT INTO act VALUES(a='$a',b='$b',c='$c')";
$result=mysql_query($query)

or 

$query = "INSERT INTO act (column_a, column_b, column_c,) VALUES (value_a, value_b, value_c, )";
$result=mysql_query($query)

would both of those work? I guess I can just test them myself and see, but which is best measure to use in your work?

[bradgrafelman]

SQL queries don't have named parameters like the first version you're using - the latter is the one I was recommending.

I always name the columns as you have now done above - it makes reading the SQL query a lot easier. Otherwise, you can't just look at an INSERT query and know where the data is going - you'd also have to look up the table schema and line up the columns from there with the values in the SQL query.

[BenGilbert]

Makes sense, thanks for answering my question in his thread lol, and hope this helps bulbul4u in your problem.

[bulbul4u]

thanks everyone...finally got this problem solved after so many days.

[bradgrafelman]

Glad we could help; don't forget to mark this thread resolved (if it is) using the link on the Thread Tools menu above.