Shorter way of writing multiple conditions from checkbox selections in php - php

Question

I'm sending information from an html form into a php page where I am checking the information against a mysql database.
Right now there are 5 checkboxes plus other variables in the form*(searchbar, radiobuttons, etc)*.
Is there a way to write the conditions without having to have a specific if statement for each path? Otherwise I have to write each specific path, and thats a lot of typing :/
Right now it would look something like:
if($orderBy == "price")
{
if($searchBy == "begin")
{
if($_POST["gameType"] == "RTS")
{
$sql = "select * from gametbl where gme_title like '$title%' and where gme_type = 'RTS' ORDER BY gme_price DESC";
}
}
and for all the conditions, thats going to take way to long. Is there a better way of doing this?

Answer 1

This is essentially what I mean by doing a method chain. You can specify within each method what to do if a specific variable is fed into it. It would dynamically write a statement based on single values. This a series of guesses based on your only bit of code:
<?php
class SQLBuilder
{
protected $order;
protected $sql;
public $statement;
public function Select($columns = false)
{
$this->sql[] = "select";
if(is_array($columns))
$this->sql[] = implode(",",$columns);
else
$this->sql[] = ($columns != false)? $columns:"*";
return $this;
}
public function Where($array = false,$like = false)
{
if($array == false)
return $this;
if(in_array("where", $this->sql))
$this->sql[] = "and";
$this->sql[] = "where";
if(is_array($array)) {
foreach($array as $key => $value)
$where[] = ($like != false)? "`$key` like '%".$value."$'":"`$key` = '".$value."'";
if(isset($where))
$this->sql[] = implode("and",$where);
}
else
$this->sql[] = $array;
return $this;
}
public function From($table = 'gametbl')
{
$this->sql[] = "from";
$this->sql[] = "`$table`";
return $this;
}
public function OrderBy($value = false,$order = false)
{
if($value != false) {
// I am guessing this is order
$heiarchy = ($order == 'begin')? " DESC":" ASC";
if($value == 'price')
$order = "`gme_price`".$heiarchy;
}
if(isset($order))
$this->sql[] = "order by ".$order;
return $this;
}
public function Fetch($return_obj = false)
{
$this->statement = implode(" ",$this->sql);
return ($return_obj != false)? $this:$this->statement;
}
}
// I don't know what your form fields are called, these are just for instances
$_POST['gameType'] = 'RTS';
$_POST['gameTitle'] = 'whatever game';
$_POST['orderBy'] = 'price';
$_POST['list'] = 'begin';
// Create instance of builder
$SQLBuilder = new SQLBuilder();
// This will just accumulate the statement based on fed-in variables.
$sql = $SQLBuilder->Select()
->From()
->Where(array("gme_title"=>$_POST['gameTitle']),true)
->Where(array("gme_type"=>$_POST['gameType']))
->OrderBy($_POST['orderBy'],$_POST['list'])
->Fetch();
echo $sql;
?>
GIVES YOU:
select * from `gametbl` where `gme_title` like '%whatever game$' and where `gme_type` = 'RTS' order by `gme_price` DESC