Echoing a <div> and obtaining the id of it - php

Question

Currently, when displaying all posts made by users I do the following:
while($info=mysql_fetch_array($data)) {
echo "<div id = 'posts'>";
echo $info['subject'];
echo $info['post-item'];
echo "</div>";
}
But, however, I now need to treat each element fetched as an actual post rather than just an outputted div for obtaining the post_id of each post to be able to actually enable a user to interact with different posts e.g. to 'like' a post.
I had tried hyperlinking the like href to ?id=$thispost which worked for liking however had problems such as a user altering the url, or even if I would like to also add the commenting functionality, I would need a different method!

Answer 1

As for different tasks, you would pass different querystrings:
like this
comment
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In page.php, you would then...
if (isset($_GET['do'] && isset($_GET['id'])) {
$do = $_GET['do'];
$id = $_GET['id'];
} else exit("blabla");
switch ($do) {
case 'like':
// do sth
break;
case 'comment':
// do sth
break;
// etc.
} // switch
Of course, passing the values by URL open the gate to manipulation.
So either store $do and $id in $_SESSION or in $_POST.
Example for $_POST:
$h = "";
while ($info = mysql_fetch_array($data)) {
$h .= '<div id = "posts">';
$h .= '<form method="post" action="page.php">';
$h .= "{$info['subject']}<br />{$info['post-item']}";
$h .= "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"id\” value=\”{$info['id']}\” />';
$h .= '<input type="submit" name="do" value="like" />';
$h .= '</form></div>';
}
echo $h;
Comments:
1. don't use mysql_*, but mysqli_* or PDO -> makes your code future-proof and more secure
2. this code creates a form around every post, with a hidden field containing the id (from db) of that post...
3. and a button that will send the id invisible for the user to page.php.
4. in page.php, you read $_POST, as in my above exaple with $_GET:
if (isset($_POST['id'])) {
$do = $_POST['do'];
$id = $_POST['id'];
} else exit("blabla");
// etc.