@Strider64 I did a copy paste on the code, it automatically did that.
@whispers I would like to stay on the same page, and not submit and $_POST to a new page
I am very new to php. I’m pretty good at HTML, but never dabbled with php or mysql until recently. I wil double check the spelling
If you want to ‘stay on the same page’ without posting/submitting the page…\
Then you will need to use AJAX to handle the dropdown change/selection.
Call a PHP script to send the data too… and have the AJAX callback update the page with the returned data.
Is there an example of your table layout?
Or an example on how you want your table to look/display?
I’ve never dealt with AJAX at all. Yes, I have an example(ish). To give you a better understanding of what I’m trying to do, I am attempting to use this setup to create a work order. The section I am having issues with is the callback information for the customer. There is a second table, which is lower on the page, that contains the service information, such as service address, contact name, work needed, etc…
I would like to be able to select the customer from the dropdown, and have the information about the customer auto-fill with the selection.
A form and its form processing code can be put on the same page. If you want the page to not refresh when data is submitted, you would use AJAX. However, if you are not at the point where you can design, write, test, and debug the php code needed to dynamically produce html elements and process the submitted form data, you are not at the point of needing to using AJAX, as it adds a layer that makes debugging harder. Learn to program using php first, then learn how to add extra things like AJAX to the process.
Well you have to pick your poison here I guess.
If you want to go the AJAX route, you will need a SEPARATE .php file that does the DQ querying and handing of the returned data… that will be passed back to the AJAX call to this external .php script.
Does that make sense to you?
Or you can select from the drop down and hit submit, and then have the page reload with that users credentials/work information.
Up to you.
The later is just a simple HTML/PHP submission form using $_POST data and a database query.
The former is a bit more involved because you need a separate/external .php file that does the work for you.
Here is a quick -n- dirty way to do it with a normal HTML/PHP form type of approach:
<?
//PDO should parameterize and sanitize good enough, but in case any screen output
function cleanInput($dirtyData){
$cleanedData = htmlspecialchars(strip_tags($dirtyData));
return $cleanedData;
}
$employee_id = isset($_POST["employee_id"]) ? cleanInput($_POST["employee_id"]) : '' ;
//check from 'mode' and set state
$mode = isset($_GET['mode']) ? $_GET['mode'] : '';
?>
<!-- Scripts -->
<script type="text/javaScript">
//jQuery (event actions)
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {
//enter key
$(document).bind('keypress', function(e) {
//enter key (code)
if(e.keyCode==13){
$('#submitBtn').trigger('click');
}
});
//submit button listener
$("#submitBtn").click(function() {
//console.log("submit button clicked");
//validation message holder
var errormessage = '';
//any potential field validation goes here
//employee
if ($("#employee_id").val() === "") {
errormessage += "\n Please select employee first";
}
//name - example
/*
if($('#name').val().trim() == ''){
//update error message for output
errormessage += "\n Name";
}
*/
//check if any errors were found
if(errormessage != ''){
event.preventDefault(); //do not submit form
//output missing data
alert("The following items need attention: \n" + errormessage);
}else{
//submit form
$('#appForm').submit();
}
});
});
</script>
<!-- example form -->
<div id='appContainer'>
<form id="appForm" name="appForm" method="post" action="<?=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>?mode=submit">
<select id="employee_id" name="employee_id">
<option value="">Select Employee</option>
<option value="1">Name1</option>
<option value="2">Name2</option>
<option value="3">Name3</option>
<option value="4">Name4</option>
</select>
<div id="buttonContainer" name="buttonContainer">
<br><button id="submitBtn" type="button">Get Work Order Details</button><br>
</div>
</form>
</div>
<?
if($mode == 'submit') {
echo 'ID CHECKING FOR: ' . $employee_id .'<br>';
$employeeDetails_sql = "SELECT * FROM php_help WHERE employee_id = :employee_id";
$employeeDetails_stmt = $conn->prepare($employeeDetails_sql);
$employeeDetails_stmt->bindValue(':employee_id', $employee_id);
$employeeDetails_stmt->execute();
$employeeDetails_stmt->setFetchMode(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
$_employeeDetails = $employeeDetails_stmt->fetch(); //single row
//$_employeeDetails = $employeeDetails_stmt->fetchAll(); //returns multi-dimensional array (changes way you access object below)
$colcount = $employeeDetails_stmt->columnCount();
$rowcount = $employeeDetails_stmt->rowCount();
//var_dump($_employeeDetails);
if($rowcount <= 0){
//no member record found
return 'There was no username/password match<br>Please try again..<br>' . print_r($_employeeDetails);
}else{
$target_id = $_employeeDetails['employee_id'];
$target_first = $_employeeDetails['employee_first'];
$target_last = $_employeeDetails['employee_last'];
$target_work_order = $_employeeDetails['work_order_id'];
echo 'EMPLOYEE ID: ' . $target_id . '<br>';
echo 'FIRST NAME: ' . $target_first . '<br>';
echo 'LAST NAME: ' . $target_last . '<br>';
echo 'WORK ORDER#: ' . $target_work_order . '<br>';
}
}
I have no clue what your table looks like… or what data is in it either…
I just output some random stuff… and DID NOT make the results into a table. (no clue what it does or should look like)
Thank everyone for the input and help. After looking at the code you laid out, @whispers, I think it will be better to do a selection on another page, and have it load the new page with the information that I need. A lot less headache and probably far less complicated than what I’m trying to make it.
Guess I need to take a few college classes on web programming… lol.
Not necessarily. I remember jquery’s ajax function would include an http header and I made a function isAjaxRequest() that would detect that. Based on that I would have the same .php file output html under normal situations and return an array of json data if it was an ajax request.
?
Please explain more.
How would get this new header/content displayed without submitting the page?
You would still need js/jquery/ajax to submit the data from the page in the web browser to the url on your server.
For example if I have a page that lists all houses for sale in my country. On that page I also have a that lists every state and another that lists every major city. By default that page lists everything in the database. If you choose a state, an ajax request is sent and the browser receives a new for the cities the only lists the cities in that state. You can then pick a city and then the whole page will refresh and go to the same url but with ?state=FL&city=miami added to it and then the page shows only houses in miami. So reducing the options of the city did not refresh the whole page but reducing the overall search results returned did involve a full page refresh.
Check out the Location on this page: https://www.bahamasrealty.com/search.php
OK, New question. I changed the form so that the information is submitted from a different page (Effectively, it just looks up the information from the query on p. 1 and returns all the values on p. 2), so that problem is solved…
NOW, I cannot get the sql to INSERT INTO… It keeps returning the “Record not Inserted” message. I have checked all my syntax, I think it is right.
<?php
session_start();
?>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Insert</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
require('connect.php');
$CompanyName = $_POST['CompanyName'];
$FirstName = $_POST['FirstName'];
$LastName = $_POST['LastName'];
$Adress = $_POST['Address'];
$City = $_POST['City'];
$State = $_POST['State'];
$ZipCode = $_POST['ZipCode'];
$Office = $_POST['Office #'];
$Home = $_POST['Home #'];
$Cell = $_POST['Cell #'];
$Fax = $_POST['Fax #'];
$CompanyEmail = $_POST['CompanyEmail'];
$PersonalEmail = $_POST['PersonalEmail'];
$BillingType = $_POST['BillingType'];
$NetDays = $_POST['NetDays'];
$BillingContact = $_POST['BillingContact'];
$BillingAddress = $_POST['BillingAddress'];
$BillingCity = $_POST['BillingCity'];
$BillingState = $_POST['BillingState'];
$BillingZip = $_POST['BillingZip'];
$BillingPhone = $_POST['BillingPhone'];
$BillingEmail = $_POST['BillingEmail'];
$PreferredRate = $_POST['PreferredRate'];
$ReferredBy = $_POST['ReferredBy'];
$ReferralDiscount = $_POST['ReferralDiscount'];
$AssurancePlan = $_POST['AssurancePlan'];
$AssuranceLevel = $_POST['AssuranceLevel'];
$sql = "INSERT INTO Customer (CompanyName, FirstName, LastName, Address, City, State, ZipCode, Office#, Home#, Cell#, Fax#, CompanyEmail, PersonalEmail, BillingType, NetDays, BillingContact, BillingAddress, BillingCity, BillingState, BillingZip, BillingPhone, BillingEmail, PreferredRate, ReferredBy, ReferralDiscount, AssurancePlan, AssuranceLevel) VALUES ('$CompanyName', '$FirstName', '$LastName', '$Address', '$City', '$State', '$ZipCode', '$Office', '$Home', '$Cell', '$Fax', '$CompanyEmail', '$PersonalEmail', '$BillingType', '$NetDays', '$BillingContact', '$BillingAddress', '$BillingCity', '$BillingState', '$BillingZip', '$BillingPhone', '$BillingEmail', '$PreferredRate', '$ReferredBy', '$ReferralDiscount', '$AssurancePlan', '$AssuranceLevel')";
if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
echo "<script type='text/javascript'> alert('Customer Created'); </script>";"
echo "<script type='text/javascript'> document.location = 'Main.php'; </script>";
} else {
echo "<script type='text/javascript'> alert('Record Not Inserted'); </script>";
echo "<script type='text/javascript'> document.location = 'customer.php'; </script>";
}
?>
</body>
</html>And I can’t seem to be able to stop this reply box from actually running script, any help with that would also be appreciated!
try using [ code ] [ /code ] tags (no spaces) so people can read your code better.
Every bit of this code is dangerous junk. Trash it and learn how to use PDO with Prepared Statements.
You need to put the bbocde code tags on lines that don’t have anything else on them (apparently the script kiddies that wrote this forum software weren’t very good programmers.)
Please, when you are first learning, do NOT write out line after line of code for each possible form field. This is just a waste of your time. Start with a form and form processing code for just one form field. Get that to work, then you can deal with the code needed for the other 20+ form fields (which you should process dynamically, using simple, reusable code, not by writing out code for each field.)
Your form processing code should -
Once you do item #7 on this list, you will be getting an error that will help find what’s causing the query to fail.
Here’s another item for the above list -
9. Put the post method form processing code above the start of the html document, not inside the html document.
The OP was given a legit PDO approach above… (not sure why people come here… ask for help , get it… then abandon it?)
Don’t build strings for your database inserts or queries manually. Use something like https://idiorm.readthedocs.io/en/latest/models.html#creating-new-records (or something better/more popular) if you can’t be bothered to learn PDO & Prepared Statements.
OK, I am trying to learn this PDO stuff.
I am using https://phpdelusions.net/pdo_examples/insert (INSERT query with named placeholders) as an example of how to insert the data into the database. Would what I have listed with the $variable = $_POST[‘Variable’] be listed under the $data section of the example shown on the model webpage?
Or would it be better to use the $variable = $POST[‘Variable’] under the execute portion of the INSERT query with positional placeholders section?
Or is there an easier way to do it using an if (isset($_POST)) function?
Programming is already a tedious, error prone, typing task. You should use the simplest method that works. Named placeholders have you spending your time typing out column names three times for each insert query. Since you should always list the column names in the 1st part of the insert query, you have to list them at least once. Why not save time by using ? (positional) place-holders?
Again, don’t spend your time typing out line after line of code for each possible form field. Instead of you using the computer as a tool to accomplish a task, you are being a slave to the computer spending your time beating on a keyboard doing repetitive work. Also, if code isn’t doing any processing on the value in a variable, there’s no good reason to even be copying variables to other variables. Just use the original variables. A good reason to make a copy of all the submitted post data is if you trimmed it so that you can detect if all white-space characters were entered. You can do this using just one single line of code, by treating the data as a set and using php’s array functions to operate on the data.
For that specific line of code, $_POST is always set, even if it is empty. Wherever you saw that, it’s wrong.
In one of my replies above in this thread, I listed out the things your form processing code should ALWAYS do. Please re-read it. Using the items on this list will result in the simplest code, that’s secure, will provide a good user experience, and will either work or it will tell you (display/log) the reason why it didn’t work.
@phdr Since I am trying to learn this, I am going by your checklist above. So far, would item #1 and item #2 be correct with:
if (isset($_POST['Name_of_submit_button'])) {
$_POST = array_map('trim', $_POST);
}As far as item #3, and item #4, since the form data is coming from a different page, wouldn’t the validation happen there?
With items #5 and #6, is this where the $stmt and $stmt -> execute() should be?
In Item #7, would https://dev.mysql.com/doc/connector-python/en/connector-python-api-errors-error.html be something like what I need?
I don’t think I am comparing values, as described in Item #8.
And item #9, you mean to put the from processing code in the header?