Displaying table from MySQL and link to delete each row from database - php

Question

I've stucked a bit when it comes to a small piece of my PHP code. The role of this script is to display whole table from mysql plus adding to each row a hyperlink to delete such row.
<?php
$connection=mysql_connect('localhost','root','') or die(mysql_error());
error
mysql_select_db('localhost_db',$connection) or die(mysql_error());
$query=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM cms_contest") or die(mysql_error());
if(mysql_num_rows($query)>0):
?>
<table width="100%" border="0">
<tr style="font-weight:bold;">
<td align="center">Id</td>
<td align="center">First Name</td>
<td align="center">Last Name</td>
<td align="center">Email</td>
<td align="center">Phone</td>
<td align="center">Answer</td>
<td align="center">Remove</td>
</tr>
<?php
while($row=mysql_fetch_object($query)):?>
<tr>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->ID; //row id ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->name; // row first name ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->surname; //row las tname ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->email; //row created time ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->phone_number; //row created time ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->contest_answer; //row created time ?></td>
<td align="center">REMOVE</td>
</tr>
<?php endwhile;?>
</table>
<?php
else: ?>
<h3>No Results found.</h3>
<?php endif; ?>
It would be perfect if there appear a short javascript popup with question like: are you sure you want to remove this entry? OK / Cancel.
I have no clue how to do it.. thanks for any tips!

Answer 1

Simple/stupid method:
<td>nuke me</td>
But if a web spider or a browser link pre-fetch tool gets loose on this page, you'll be nuking ALL of your records.
Somewhat better:
<td>
<form method="post" action="deleteme.php">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $row->ID ?>" />
<input type="submit" value="Nuke me" />
</form></td>
And then there's various options involving radio buttons/checkboxes, or JS to trap the click-on-the-link etc...
But, in the end, they ALL boil down to "you have to sent the ID of the row back to the server". How you go about that is up to you... just don't use the plain "click here" version.

Answer 2

Indeed there are several different ways to do this. One way I like is to wrap the entire table in a form that submits to the delete script, and use a button for each row with the row ID as its value.
<form method="post" action="delete.php">
<table width="100%" border="0">
<tr style="font-weight:bold;">
<td align="center">Id</td>
<td align="center">First Name</td>
<td align="center">Last Name</td>
<td align="center">Email</td>
<td align="center">Phone</td>
<td align="center">Answer</td>
<td align="center">Remove</td>
</tr>
<?php while($row=mysql_fetch_object($query)): ?>
<tr>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->ID; //row id ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->name; // row first name ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->surname; //row las tname ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->email; //row created time ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->phone_number; //row created time ?></td>
<td align="center"><?php echo $row->contest_answer; //row created time ?></td>
<td align="center">
<button name="delete-id" type="submit" value="<?php echo $row->ID; ?>">
REMOVE
</button>
</td>
</tr>
<?php endwhile;?>
</table>
</form>
There are also many different ways to confirm the deletion. The simplest I know of on the client side is to add onclick="return confirm('Are you sure?');" to the delete button.

Answer 3

click event:
DELETE
<script type="text(javascript">
function confirmDelete(id){
if(confirm('sure u want to delete entry with id: ' + id + '?')){
window.location.href = "ursite.php?id="+id+"&delete=true";
}
}
</script>
PHP
if(isset($_GET['delete'])){
$stmt = "DELETE FROM cms_contest WHERE ID = ".$_GET['id'];
mysql_query($stmt);
}
it's the worst way to do it.
I recommend you to look at:
jQuery $.post()jQuery $.ajax()
I hope it will help you.