Is there a way to call field rows in a URL without using the column name??
So I currently have a posting site where users can select category or subcategories of choice from drop downs, how it's currently setup my site outputs links to the categories chosen such as..
topics.php?category=Food&sub_cat=Pies
topics.php?sub_cat=Pies
This allows users to go to either one of the links, or both
topics.php?category=Food&sub_cat=Pies
To give more functionality I am looking at adding textboxes instead of drop downs, the problem is users will more than likely enter the data in different boxes than other users, ie.
User 1. catbox: Food subcatbox: Pies
User 2. catbox: Pies subcatbox: Food
So in this case my current URL system won't return accurate results, so my question is would there be a way where "category" or "subcategory" could be replaced and just put the results together without them being listed in 2-5 different fields therefore not returning all the results that = to that value? "food" or "pie" in this example.
topics.php?xxx=Food&xxx=Pies
or
topics.php?xxx=Pies&xxx=Food
Looking at So homepage if you click "php" it will put php in the URL, click mysql and it will put "php+mysql" that sort of thing.
you can use parent child method in your database.your table would be like this
id - parent_id - category_name - depth
when you want to insert a data to your table it's depth will be one plus it's parent depth
when someone post to your page you first take query witch of the inputs has most depth then that will be your subcategory.
Calling field rows via parameters in your URL may be a very bad idea. It's a perfect way to allow a massive SQL injection attack. So, the answer is probably "yes, but HOLY MOLY PLEASE DON'T!"
Now it may be that your code is parsing these out on the back end and protecting them via any of a variety of methods, I can't tell from the amount of code posted.
Related
I have 2 dropdown lists. In the first i have Parent Categories with Car Brands ( Seat,Audi etc). Each Category for example Seat has many subCategories that are the diffent models : Seat Cordoba,Seat Leon etc.
What i cant find out is, how i actually can pass the id of the Category selected in list 1 to server side so i Can make the query to db and parse the children of first category.
To be as clear as i can, Here is a more detailed example with picture from what im trying to do :
After the user selects "Audi" , need to get the value from the <option> and pass it somehow again at server-side to send a new query to the database,so i can create the second list also,with the models from Audi.
Is this even doable at all,to make the client-side communicate with server-side?
Or i need to find out a completly different approach?
Read this tutorial. It will help you solve your problem. It's Ajax + Php + MySQL
PHP Ajax and MySQL
You will require to pass the value of category drop down list.
For the same you have to use Ajax and call a php file/script which will populate the sub category according to the value received from the category drop down list.
Ajax is required for it.
Firstly, I'm quite new to PHP having only dived in some three weeks ago but loving it as a new thing to learn! I have a specific problem that I cannot seem to find a solution for via Google. I'm running a test page that will form the basis of a final product for a local recreational club that runs competitions and wants to display the results online on their website.
I've created a MySQL database and called it 'results' and imported as a CSV a sample of competition results. My code to connect to the database works as the page displays the "Database Connection Established" message.
The database contains a table called 'z_any_year_results' and the table structure looks like this:-
Record_Number Field Value
1 Field_1 Value_1
2 Field_2 Value_2
3 Field_3 Value_3
4 Field_4 Value_4
5 Field_5 Value_5
I understand how to select the specific table using
mysql_select_db("results") or die(mysql_error());
$data = mysql_query("SELECT z_any_year_results FROM results")
but I need to echo a specific field from the table in a specific section of the web page. So for example, in one section of the page I need to output the field containing the value Field_1 and nearby on the page the field containing the value Value_1. But in another section of the page I need to output the field with the value Field_4 and nearby on the page, the field containing the value Value_4. So I guess my problem is how to extract a specific piece of data from a table to the exclusion of all other records in the table and outout it as an echo on the web page. I cannot find anything on the web that is written in a simple step-by-stepway to help novices like myself understand.
Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to achieve this?
Many thanks in advance.
You are using a type of data design known as key/value design. In other words, each row has the name of a data item and its value. That's not an ideal sort of design for a beginner to use, because it makes for fairly intricate queries.
To answer your question, if you want a certain named field's value you use this query.
SELECT Value FROM z_any_year_results WHERE Name = 'Field4'
But, maybe you want a design that resembles your application's entities a little more closely.
You might have an entity, a table, called, contestant, another called contest, and another called prize.
contestant is a table with columns like contestant_id, surname, givenname, email etc
e.g. 1 , Ellison, Larry, larry#oracle.com
Then you can use queries like SELECT * FROM contest WHERE YEAR(datestart) = 2016 which will make your queries more closely reflect the logic of your application.
In a web form i will ask the user for their job experiences, this data will have no fixed lenght. I need to let the user insert all the items he needs, every item will content 3 fields; job title, description and year.
My firts problem is, how can i ask in the html form for the items? i mean, whats the best way to ask items with no fixed lenght using html/php (and maybe ajax)? I saw some sites that have a button (add one) when you hit it a new item slot is showed, but i have no idea of how to implement this, an example will be sufficient.
The second part is, how can i managed the data flow in post or get?, until now, i only use fixed fields, so i always know in my php script how many post or get vars i will get. How can i use multiple POST vars without knowing the amount of them?
And the last one (and the more important), how will be the best structure for my table in MySQL? If i get multiple items for a fixed table where i will have all my users, how can i resolve the multiple items issue? For example, if my table is:
User | password | job_experiences
admin | root | (this is just a cell, how can i save multiple items here?)
jonh | 1234 | (this is just a cell, how can i save multiple items here?)
Thanks for any help!!!!
Those are 3 questions, and it's best to post 3 questions, instead of discussing all of them. I will post the basics, and if you have specific questions, ask.
First, use button to add, and a JavaScript to clone an existing row (which can have more then one input field). For fieldnames use something like company_name[] - the [] is the important part, at this will send the field as an array. If you are editting profile, you can use company_name[$id] to preserve the mapping.
Second, in PHP you will receive this as $_POST['company_name'] which will be numeric array with all the company names. Or if you specify $id - with the corresponding keys. So, you have to loop trough all company_names, if there are other fields - you retrieve them the same way, using the current key. Example:
for (i =0; i<$_POST['comany_name'].length;i++) {
$company = $_POST['comany_name'][$i];
$start_year = $_POST['from'][$i];
...
}
Next, you need 1 table for the users (username, password), and another for job experiences (userid, company, description, from, to). This is called 1:M relation
So I am picking up a project that was quit halfway through by the last guy so that I could get some more practice with PHP and databases. I have run into a problem, and I am sure it is common enough that there is a standard solution, but I am unable to find one.
The db I am working with has 4,600, so reorganizing is out of the question. It is a db of liquers for a wholesaler. Here is what the results page looks like currently:
What I am trying to set it up so the results are returned in list form, with only one title and dropdown menus for the different sizes/prices of products that looks like this:
The problem is that there are multiple entries in the db for each product. In this example there are 3, while some have 1, and some have 2.
I am really not sure how to go about this, and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I'm not sure about the PHP syntax, but pseudocode here's what you could do:
allProductsReturnedFromMySQL = QueryYourDatabaseForAllProducts()
Hashtable[productId, List[productSizes]] dropDownsByProduct;
Hashtable[productId, commonProductInformation] uniqueProducts;
foreach (product in allProductsReturnedFromMySQL) {
if product.productId not in uniqueProducts
then add it with the product information that does not vary
if product.productId not in dropDownsByProduct
then add it with an empty list
append the size of this product to the corresponding list in dropDownsByProduct
}
After that little bit of logic you'll have all your unique products with the common properties for each one, and a way to fetch the corresponding sizes drop down. If you wanted to do this purely in SQL to minimize the data that's transferred, you could do something like this:
-- this would get you your products
select distinct id, property1, property2 from product
-- this would get you your drop downs by product
select id, size from product order by id
You can then build the same drop down hashtable by iterating through the second result set.
I'm not sure if this is the best way, but I've always approached this by altering the query so that it is sorted by product name. Then as you iterate through the rows, check to see if the product name matches the one you just processed. If it's the same, then this row is a different size of the same project.
I have read other answers on this (or at least near to this) subject but I couldn't get a clear view of it so I'm asking for help again.
I have a complex dynamic HTML form that I would like to submit to database using PHP. The form is split into multiple tabs and in each tab I got checkboxes that trigger other parts of the form. Example: at a point in my form I got a checkbox group that has options of: "hotel" and "restaurant". If I check hotels, I get another part of the form displayed, specific for "hotels". Same thing for "restaurant". So it's very dynamic here and I don't know which would be the best approach for storing every form field in database. Because it could contain 15 fields or 20, depending on the selection. Any example would be appreciated as I'm not that advanced with database design.
Thank you!
So it's very dynamic here and I don't
know which would be the best approach
for storing every form field in
database.
I apologise if I have misunderstood you here but I believe that you should design the database according to the data and not the form. It is difficult to comment without knowing the exact details of your situation so here is an example:
If you usually dump all the data from a form into a single table, but because sometimes this will involve submitting 5 values and other times this will involve submitting 10 and so you are unsure how many columns your table should have, then I think the problem is in the database design.
Work out what pieces of data are dependent on other pieces of data. For example, you mention checking "hotel" might open up more fields specific to that choice. Let's assume this involves things like "en-suite", "bed type" etc. Then you should have 3 tables, a registration table (assuming the user is using the form to buy these services), a hotel table and a registration_hotel table. The registration table will record a number of details specific to the registration only such as the customer's name and a unique id number. The hotel table will hold information specific to the hotel only, such as how many rooms have en-suite. The registration_hotel table will hold details specific to that registration at that hotel. You might want a column of type bool to record whether the user requested "en-suite".
When submitting the form, check which pieces the user entered with if(isset($_POST['hotel']) && !empty($_POST['hotel'])). Then only send stuff to the registration_hotel table if that condition is true.
If this design results in making too many separate calls to the database, you might want to look into transactions which will help you to manage the speed and security of these calls.
If you can post in a specific example of something you don't know how to do, that would be useful.
You didn't specify how you can manage this dynamic form. Can you edit it's PHP/HTML source? One great thing would be if you can label your different variables like hotel[], restaurant[], etc.
If your submitted form is clear enough (i mean semantically correctly structured) you can store the whole submitted form serialized.
Note: this method only working when you don't need to search for specific items in your database.
Edit: maybe i'm misunderstood your problem.
You can create a 'metadata' table like this:
form_id | option_name | option_value
---------------------------------------
1 | hotel | true
1 | restaurant | false