Post results back to same page as search form - php

Question

I am doing a project and need some help please :) (full code at bottom)
The project needs to be accessed with PDO.
I need search results to appear on the same page as the search was entered.
This below doesnt seem right to me using GET instead of POST.. is this correct?
This works but I need to remove/hide this bit of code that appears when my page (index.php) first loads.
if(!isset($_GET['search']))
{ echo "Error, Please go back."; exit;}
How do i do that?
Also my second problem is I can not get the search form to search more than one field in a table. It just wont let me. I cant use this bit of code either
%'.$searchterm.'%
as it wont give me any feedback from the search. So i am using the
:searchterm
in
$searchterm = $_GET['search'];
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM boxer WHERE weightclass LIKE :searchterm OR nationality ");
$stmt->bindValue(':searchterm','%'.$searchterm.'%');
$stmt->execute();
Here is my full code:
<?php
$servername = 'localhost';
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$dbname = "u1360138";
<?php
if(isset($_POST['search'])){
echo 'Search';
}
?>
<!-- Search facility 1 -->
<form action="index.php" method="get">
<label for="search">Enter a weight class. Need to be more than one searchs which wont work</label>
<input type="text" name="search" id="search">
<input type="submit" value="Search">
</form>
<?php
// DB Connection
try {$conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$servername;dbname=$dbname", $username, $password);}
catch(PDOException $e)
{echo "Error conntecting to the DB: " . $e->getMessage();}
if(!isset($_GET['search']))
{ echo "Error, Please go back."; exit;}
// DB Connection
$searchterm = $_GET['search'];
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM boxer WHERE weightclass LIKE :searchterm");
$stmt->bindValue(':searchterm','%'.$searchterm.'%');
$stmt->execute();
// loop displays loop
while ($boxer = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_OBJ))
{ echo "<ul>";
echo "<a href='details.php?idboxer=".$boxer->idboxer."'>";
echo "<li>".$boxer->firstname." ".$boxer->lastname."</li>";
echo "</a>";
echo "</ul>"; }
$conn=NULL;
?>

Answer 1

In good practices, use POST to send params when user SEND something to the server that will change data on the server (store in db for exemple or send an email). Use GET when user RETRIEVE something from the server, to read data (query a db). So prefer GET here.
To solve your issue, simply enclose the whole code that process the research in a "if(isset($_GET['search'])){}" section as below:
<?php
$servername = 'localhost';
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$dbname = "u1360138";
<?php
if(isset($_GET['search'])){
echo 'Search';
}
?>
<!-- Search facility 1 -->
<form action="index.php" method="get">
<label for="search">Enter a weight class. Need to be more than one searchs which wont work</label>
<input type="text" name="search" id="search">
<input type="submit" value="Search">
</form>
<?php
if(isset($_GET['search'])){
// DB Connection
try {$conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$servername;dbname=$dbname", $username, $password);}
catch(PDOException $e)
{echo "Error conntecting to the DB: " . $e->getMessage();}
// DB Connection
$searchterm = $_GET['search'];
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM boxer WHERE weightclass LIKE :searchterm");
$stmt->bindValue(':searchterm','%'.$searchterm.'%');
$stmt->execute();
// loop displays loop
while ($boxer = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_OBJ))
{
echo "<ul>";
echo "<a href='details.php?idboxer=".$boxer->idboxer."'>";
echo "<li>".$boxer->firstname." ".$boxer->lastname."</li>";
echo "</a>";
echo "</ul>";
}
$conn=NULL;
}
?>

Answer 2

This below doesnt seem right to me using GET instead of POST.. is this correct? This works but I need to remove/hide this bit of code that appears when my page (index.php) first loads.
It depends on whenever you want to use GET or POST. POST is more secure, so for submitting a form I'm always using POST. In that case you can leave this code:
if(isset($_POST['search'])){
echo 'Search';
}
You do need to change the form's action type to POST:
<form action="index.php" method="post">
....
Then add the end you need to get the search value from the POST instead of GET, because we changed the action type.
$searchterm = $_POST['search'];

Answer 3

So i figured this out and
<!-- HTML FORM SEARCH BAR -->
<form action="index.php" method="post">
<label for="enteredterm">Enter a Weight-class or a Nationality:</label>
<input type="text" name="enteredterm">
<input type="submit" name="search">
</form>
<!-- HTML FORM SEARCH BAR -->
if(isset($_POST['search'])){
$enteredterm = $_POST['enteredterm'];
if ($enteredterm ===""){
echo "error, enter something.";
} else {
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM boxer WHERE weightclass LIKE :enteredterm OR nationality LIKE :enteredterm or lastname LIKE :enteredterm ORDER BY year");
$stmt->bindValue(':enteredterm','%'.$enteredterm.'%');
$stmt->execute();
$count= $stmt->rowCount();
echo "You entered ".$enteredterm." and returned ";
if($count <= 1){
echo $count." result.";
}else{
echo $count." results.";
}
// loop displays loop
while ($boxer = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_OBJ))
{ echo "<ul>";
echo "<a href='details.php?idboxer=".$boxer->idboxer."'>";
echo "<li>".$boxer->firstname." ".$boxer->lastname."</li>";
echo "</a>";
echo "</ul>"; }