PHP Script for Datepicker to select and display database from Mysql - php

Question

After spending 3 days on internet and struggling with so many different forums , i have found a match and similar case of my problem here.
Friends, I am zero in PHP, but still i have managed to do something to fulfill my requirement.
I am stuck with one thing now..So i need help on....
I am using one html+php form to submit database into mysql.
I created a display of that table through php script on a webpage.
Now i want a datepicker option on that displayed page by which i should able to select the date range and display the data of that date range from my mysql table.
And then take a export of data displayed of selected date range in excel.
This displayed page is login protected, so i want after login the next thing comes in should show a sate selection option which should be fromdate to to date , and then records should displayed from the database and i can take export of those displayed results in excel file.
The code i am using on this page is below which do not have any thing included for excel export and date picker script, I am pasting the code here and request you to please include the required code in it as required.
Thanks In advance
<?php
//database connections
$db_host = 'localhost';
$db_user = '***********';
$db_pwd = '*************';
$database = 'qserves1_uksurvey';
$table = 'forms';
$file = 'export';
if (!mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_pwd))
die("Can't connect to database");
if (!mysql_select_db($database))
die("Can't select database");
// sending query
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM {$table} ORDER BY date desc");
if (!$result) {
die("Query to show fields from table failed");
}
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);
$fields_num = mysql_num_fields($result);
echo "$num_rows";
echo "<h1></h1>";
echo "<table border='1'><tr>";
// printing table headers
for($i=0; $i<$fields_num; $i++)
{
$field = mysql_fetch_field($result);
echo "<td>{$field->name}</td>";
}
echo "</tr>\n";
// printing table rows
while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))
{
echo "<tr>";
// $row is array... foreach( .. ) puts every element
// of $row to $cell variable
foreach($row as $cell)
echo "<td>$cell</td>";
echo "</tr>\n";
}
mysql_free_result($result);
?>
</body></html>

Answer 1

This isn't a "write my code for me, please" site, so you're going to need to be a little more engaging and pro-acive. But we can certainly provide some guidance. Let's see...
Currently you have a page which displays all records from a given table, is that correct? And you need to do two things:
Before displaying any records, have the user select a date range. And keep the date range selection on the page so the user can re-select.
Provide a button which lets the user export the selected records to Excel.
For either of these, you're going to need to add an actual form to the page. Currently there isn't one. For the date picker, I recommend (naturally) using the jQuery UI datepicker. So the form for that would look something like this:
<form method="POST" action="myPHPFile.php">
<input type="text" id="fromDate" name="fromDate" />
<input type="text" id="toDate" name="toDate" />
<input type="submit" name="filterDate" value="Submit" />
</form>
<script>
$(function() {
$("#fromDate").datepicker();
$("#toDate").datepicker();
});
</script>
You may have to wrap the JavaScript in a $(document).ready(){} in order to make it work correctly, you'll want to test that. Anyway, this will give you a form to submit the dates to your script. Wrap the parts of your script which output data in a conditional which determines if the form values are present or not. If they're not, don't fetch any records. If they are, do some basic input checking (make sure the values are valid values, make sure fromDate is before toDate, etc.) and construct your SQL query to filter by date range. (Do take care to avoid SQL injection vulnerabilities here.)
For the Excel output, you may be able to find a ready-made solution for you that just needs a little tinkering. If I were to create one from scratch, I'd probably just output to a .csv file rather than a full Excel file. Most users don't know/care the difference. In that case, you'd just want to either create a second script which is nearly identical to the existing one or add a flag to the existing one which switches between HTML and CSV output, such as via a hidden form field.
For the output of the CSV, first make sure you set your response headers. You'll want to write a header to tell the browser that you're outputting a CSV file rather than text/html, and possibly suggest a file name for the browser to save. Then, the form inputs the SQL query will all be pretty much the same as before. The only difference is in the "HTML" that's being output. Rather than HTML tags, you'd wrap the records in commas, double-quotes (where appropriate), and carriage returns.
There's really nothing special to outputting a "file" vs. "HTML" because the HTTP protocol has no distinction between the two. It's always just text with headers.
Now, I'm sure you have more questions regarding this. And that's fine. In fact, we like to encourage asking (and, of course, answering) questions here. So please feel free to ask for clarification either in comments on this answer (or other answers), or by editing and refining your original question, or by asking an entirely new question if you have a specific topic on which you need help. Ideally, a good question on Stack Overflow consists of sample code which you are trying to write, an explanation of what the code is supposed to be doing, a description of the actual resulting output of the code, and any helpful information relevant to the code. As it stands right now, your question provides code somewhat unrelated to what you're asking, and you're just requesting that we add some features to it outright for you.