PHP POST value from <input> that was created with While loop - php

Question

I am attempting to create a page that displays buttons that are associated to an account number that is a primary key in a database. When I click on the button I want that button to take its value and assign it to a variable that can be used for loading information into a profile page that will load after the button click.
After the button click I would like to load a profile page that uses the value (acc_ID) to load each of the profile attributes (name, location, etc) from a database. I have the functionality to do this already because I have it set up for when a user logs in they see their information populate in their profile page.
So far I have a While loop that populates a table with all of the player account numbers and "View Profile" buttons. Each button is assigned the player account number as a value and is also part of the name.
$query = "SELECT * FROM player";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);
echo "<table>
<tr>
<th>View Profile</th>
<th>Acct Id</th>
</tr>";
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
{
echo" <form action='php/createPlayerProfilesList.php'>";
echo "<tr>";
echo"<td> <input type='submit' name='submit-'.$row[acc_ID].'' value='View
Profile - $row[acc_ID]'> </input> </td>";
echo "<td class='viewProfile'><input name='player[]' class='getPlayerId'
readonly type='text' value='". $row['acc_ID'] ."' > " . $row['acc_ID'] . "
</input></td>";
echo "<td>" . $row['player_FName'] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $row['player_LName'] . "</td>";
echo "</tr>";
echo "</form>";
}
echo "</table>";
What I can't figure out is how to display the players profile information into a profile template after I click on their specific View Profile button which takes me to the profile.php template. I know how to load the information into the profile template based on acc_ID because it does that when they login but I can't figure this one out.
This is a sample of the profile code that populates the template based on what acc_ID is the SESSION variable.
session_start();
include("navbarphp.php");
if($_SESSION['person_type'] == 'P'){
$acct_ID = $_SESSION['acc_ID'];
$query = "SELECT * FROM player WHERE acc_ID = '$acct_ID'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()){
$location = $row['player_location'];
$fname = $row['player_FName'];
$lname = $row['player_LName'];
$school = $row['high_school'];
$gpa = $row['GPA'];
$bio = $row['BIO'];
$pos = $row['position'];
}
}
I searched for a good while on this site and had a couple things that helped but in the end I still am not able to pass a specific View Profile button value. Any help would be great. Thanks

Answer 1

You may have better luck by adjusting your html output to the following format:
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
{
echo '<tr>';
echo '<td><form action="php/createPlayerProfilesList.php">';
echo '<input type="hidden" name="playerId" value="'. $row['acc_ID'] .'">';
echo '<input type="submit" name="submit" value="View Profile - '. $row['acc_ID'] .'">';
echo '</form></td>';
echo '<td>'. $row['player_FName'] .'</td>';
echo '<td>'. $row['player_LName'] .'</td>';
echo '</tr>';
}
What this does is pull the form element inside a table cell, because where you have it now, wraps a table row (which is bad html). Then you put the acc_ID into a hidden input field, which is what you would use to pull the data.
In your createPlayerProfilesList.php script you would use it like this:
<?php
if (!empty($_POST['playerId'])) {
// ... pull from db based on value in $_POST['playerId']
$acct_ID = (int)$_POST['playerId'];
// ...
}
?>
This is of course a shortened example of one of the ways you could go about doing this. For example another method used these days, is by styling elements and using javascript with ajax to pull a 'record' of data, to then display dynamically in a box or overlay on the page when you click a button to 'view more'. However that example would go beyond the scope of this question ;)