Why delete button voids edit button execution - php

Question

I have database generated content in a table with edit and delete buttons in a form at the end of the row.
<td>
<form action="?" method="post">
<div class="">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php htmlspecialchars($item['id']); ?>">
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="edit_daily_shift_report">
<input type="submit" value="Edit" onclick="return confirm('Edit this report?');">
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="delete_daily_shift_report">
<input type="submit" value="Delete" onclick="return confirm('Delete this report?');">
</div>
</form>
</td>
If I remove the delete button, the edit code works fine. But with both buttons present, the edit button fails and the item in the row is deleted. I am stumped. Not only is the action value of the edit button ignored, the action value of the delete button is executed. Any help is appreciated!
Here is the controller edit and delete code:
/*********************** Edit Daily Shift Report ************************/
if (isset($_POST['action']) && $_POST['action'] === 'edit_daily_shift_report')
{
include '../includes/dbconnect-local.php';
try
{
$sql = 'SELECT * FROM daily_shift_report WHERE id = :id';
$s = $db->prepare($sql);
$s->bindValue(':id', $_POST['id']);
$s->execute();
}
catch (PDOException $e)
{
$error = 'Error deleting data.' . $e->getMessage();
include 'error.html.php';
exit();
}
// Assign page title value
$pageTitle = 'Edit Daily Shift Report';
// Store single row resut in $item associative array
$item = $s->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
// Display report content in form
include 'edit_daily_shift_report.html.php';
exit();
}
/********************* Delete from Daily Shift Report *******************/
if (isset($_POST['action']) && $_POST['action'] === 'delete_daily_shift_report')
{
include '../includes/dbconnect-local.php';
try
{
$sql = 'DELETE FROM daily_shift_report WHERE id = :id';
$s = $db->prepare($sql);
$s->bindValue(':id', $_POST['id']);
$s->execute();
}
catch (PDOException $e)
{
$error = 'Error deleting data.' . $e->getMessage();
include 'error.html.php';
exit();
}
echo '<span style="color:#ff0000;">Daily Shift Report DELETED successfully!</span>';
}
Thank you.

Answer 1

You need to understand how the post request works. As you know, you have two action fields, one for delete and one for edit.
Your problem is in short that there is no way to Connecticut specific input fields to different buttons.
What i would rather suggest is that you set the name of the buttons to action and the value as the value you already use for the hidden fields.
With this you also have to make a minor change in your html. Instead of:
<input type="submit" value="something" onclick="something">
Use this:
<button name="action" value="edit" onclick="something">Edit</button>
And the same goes for delete button
When you use button tag instead of input, you can set a value to the button which is different from the display, which makes it a cleaner PHP code when checking the value of $_POST['action'] afterwards