Insert statement for variables that will always be different - php

Question

I have a page that is putting random test questions on the page. The database has a bank of over 200 questions. The questions are grabbed randomly for a 20 question test. Upon submit, I need to insert a record for each question with the question number, user ID and answer provided. I have this working fine previously but as the question bank has grown and the need to change up the test grows, I spend far too much time changing hard coded variables and insert statements on the script that processes the test and inserts the results to the database.
$fname=$_POST['EmployeeFirstM'];
$lname=$_POST['EmployeeLast'];
$ruser=$_POST['User'];
$1=$_POST['q1'];
$2=$_POST['q2'];
$3=$_POST['q3'];
With the variables on up to 200+. What comes from the previous page could be any mix of 20 questions. I need to do:
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(empID, empf, empl, QuestionNumber, AnswerGiven)VALUES('$ruser','$fname', '$lname','1', '$1')";
20 times with whatever mix of questions come across. Am I going to have to hard code in 200+ insert statements for every question possible and just have it skip over the insert statements that aren't in the mix for each submission? The prior version of the test recorded to one line item but I had to keep adding columns to the table to accept more questions. I don't think that's efficient. Please and thanks.
After much trial and error this works for recording the question IDs into the database tables. I still can't figure out how to get the corresponding selected radio button input into the mix to record the answer.
foreach( $_POST as $q_id ) {
if( is_array( $q_id ) ) {
foreach( $q_id as $qid ){
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(empID, empf, empl, QuestionNumber, AnswerGiven)VALUES('$ruser','$fname', '$lname','$qid', '$q')";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
}
}
}

Answer 1

You certainly shouldn't have to hard-code values for every record in your database. The kind of defeats one of the reasons for having a database in the first place, separating the data from the logic.
Why do you have 200+ variables? When you're rendering the page with the questions, I imagine you would randomly select 20 questions from the database, right? And each of those questions would have some sort of unique ID, yes? So the structure for rendering the questions to the page might be something like:
<input type="hidden" name="qid[]" value="<?php echo $id ?>" />
<?php echo $question ?>
<input type="text" name="answer[]" />
This would be in a loop of some sort, where $id and $question are the values changing in each iteration of the loop for the 20 questions selected from the database.
Then when the form is posted with the answers, you have your question IDs here:
$_POST["qid"][]
and your answers here:
$_POST["answer"][]
As arrays. Add in some error checking to ensure both arrays have 20 values and you can loop from 0-19 to insert them into the database:
for ($i = 0; $i < 20; $i++) {
// $_POST["qid"][$i] is the ID of the question being answered
// $_POST["answer"][$i] is the answer given
// Sanitize the inputs and insert into the database accordingly
}

Answer 2

Put your values in an array, then just loop through it so you can insert them in a loop.
$answerGiven[];// have all your answers here
$questionNumber[]; // have all your questions in here
foreach ($questionNumber as $key=>$value){
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(empID, empf, empl, QuestionNumber, AnswerGiven)VALUES('$ruser','$fname', '$lname','$questionNumber[$key]', '$answerGiven[$key]')";
// execute
}
If you are looking for a more efficient way of doing it, use prepared statements... this will also prevent SQL Injection
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(empID, empt, empl, QuestionNumber, AnswerGiven)VALUES(?,?,?,?,?)";
if($stmt = $mysqli->prepare($sql)){
foreach ($questionNumber as $key=>$value){
$stmt->bind_param('sssis',$ruser, $fname, $lname, $questionNumber[$key], $answerGiven[$key]);
$stmt->execute();
}
$stmt->close();
}else die("Failed to prepare query");

Answer 3

Use name="q[]" in the input elements that are repeated. Then PHP will create an array named $_POST['q'] and you can process them in a loop.
foreach ($_POST['q'] as $i => $q) {
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(empID, empf, empl, QuestionNumber, AnswerGiven)VALUES('$ruser','$fname', '$lname', $i, '$q')";
// submit query
}