help needed with saving dynamic generated form fields to DB

SoftDux · #1 (**permalink**) 07-20-10, 06:55 AM

Hi all,

I need some help with saving dynamic generated form values to the database.

The form has 4 fields: a checkbox, "first name", "email" (textfield), "notes" (textfield)

Basically an admin needs to indicate which users attended a meeting, and also sometimes update their info on the fly.
So, a form gets generated full of names, depending on various criteria, like "age group" / "sex" / "city", etc. Thus the length and content of the forms can vary every time. The admin person then needs to tick the select box next to the name of the person attending, and sometimes update his info on the fly as well. The "Email" & "Notes" textfields are editable and I need to save the info in those textfields as well.

So, I have the following list:

Name Fistname Lastname Email Notes
John Doe john@doe.net sick
Jane Smith jane@blah.com
Joe Soap joe@soap.tv on vacation

etc, etc.

I need to record:
a.) who attended - I got this working fine already
b.) all their updated info. - this is the one which I don't know how todo, since the list is dynamically generated.

For the checkboxes, I have the following:

Code:

<?php
        $k = 0;
        for($i = 0, $n = count($rows); $i < $n; $i++) {
            $row = $rows[$i];
            $y = $k + 1;
            $class = "sectiontableentry" . $y;
            ?>
            <tr>
                <td class="<?php echo $class;?>" align="center" width="50"><?php echo $row->id; ?> (<?php echo$row->userid; ?>)</td>
                <td class="<?php echo $class;?>"><?php echo $row->fullusername; ?></td>
                <td class="<?php echo $class;?>" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb<?php echo $i;?>" name="cid[]" value="<?php echo $row->userid.'-'.$row->fullusername; ?>" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /checked ></td>
                <td class="<?php echo $class;?>" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes" id="<?php echo $row->id; ?>"></td>
            </tr>
            <?php
            $k = 1 - $k;
        }
        ?>

Which then produces an HTML list as follows:

Code:

<table cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%">
			<tr>
				<td class="sectiontableheader" align="center" width="20">#</td>
				<td class="sectiontableheader">Naam:</td>
				<td class="sectiontableheader" align="center">Teenwoording:</td>
				<td class="sectiontableheader" align="center">Notas:</td>
			</tr>
					<tr>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center" width="50">30 (69)</td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1">Abre van Buuren</td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb0" name="cid[]" value="69-Abre van Buuren" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /checked ></td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes" id="30"></td>
			</tr>
						<tr>
				<td class="sectiontableentry2" align="center" width="50">31 (71)</td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry2">Berne Botha</td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry2" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb1" name="cid[]" value="71-Berne Botha" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /checked ></td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry2" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes" id="31"></td>
			</tr>
						<tr>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center" width="50">32 (70)</td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1">Corlea van Buuren</td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb2" name="cid[]" value="70-Corlea van Buuren" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /checked ></td>
				<td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes" id="32"></td>
			</tr>
						<tr>
				<td colspan="">&nbsp;</td>
			</tr>
			<tr> 
				<td class="sectiontablefooter" align="center" colspan=""></td>
			</tr>
			<tr> 
				<td class="sectiontablefooter" align="center" colspan=""></td>
			</tr>
			<tr>
				<td>&nbsp;</td>
				<td><input class="button" type="submit" name="submit_list" value="Submit" /></td>
			</tr>
		</table>

Then I capture the results as follows:

Code:

$cid = $_POST["cid"];
foreach ($cid as $value ) {
            $users = explode('-',$value);
            $body .= $users[0].'-'.$users[1]."<BR />";
}

2 problem exists with this approach though:
1. Since both the "cid" & "notes" fields are arrays, I can't get join the data. i.e. I can't reliably see what notes were given with the corresponding users.
2. HTML doesn't submit non-checked checkboxes, so I don't get those rows' data. This also mean I don't get to capture the updated email address & notes for this user, even though he didn't attend. Basically, if a user is sick / on vacation / etc, then we still need to know why he didn't attend a meeting.

So, the question is, how do I capture a whole row in a dynamic table like this, and map the corresponding info to the right user / userid?

P.S. I took the email textfield out of the code to see if I can first get the "notes" field's info collected.
P.P.S. This is a Joomla component

job0107 · #2 (**permalink**) 07-22-10, 04:25 PM

I think you are going about this the wrong way.
The checkboxes should have their own column in the database and they should have nothing to do with the persons data other than to indicate whether they are attending or not.
In which case the checkbox column will be either on or null.
All the rest of the persons data should be collected in their own input fields.
The names of the input fields should be all arrays including the checkbox fields.
All the arrays should be identified with a value starting with 0.
That way, if a checkbox isn't checked, then the corresponding array element for that checkbox will not be there and can be easily verified using PHP's !empty() function.

You should be able to end up with an output that looks something like this:

PHP Code:


			
<?php
if(!empty($_POST["submit_list"])) {
 $id = $_POST["id"];
 $name = $_POST["name"];
 $cid = $_POST["cid"];
 $notes = $_POST["notes"];
 $p=0;
 $patterns = array("(",")");
 for($i=0;$i<count($id);$i++)
 {
  if(!empty($id[$i])){$body[$p] .= str_replace($patterns,"",$id[$i])."-";}
  if(!empty($name[$i])){$body[$p] .= $name[$i]." - ";}
  if(!empty($cid[$i])){$body[$p] .= " Attending ";}
  else{$body[$p] .= " Not attending ";}
  if(!empty($notes[$i])){$body[$p] .= "- ".$notes[$i];}
  $p++;
  }
 echo "<pre>";
 print_r($body);
 echo "</pre>";
}
?>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<form action="#" method="POST">
<table cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%">
            <tr>
                <td class="sectiontableheader" align="center" width="20">#</td>
                <td class="sectiontableheader">Naam:</td>
                <td class="sectiontableheader" align="center">Teenwoording:</td>
                <td class="sectiontableheader" align="center">Notas:</td>
            </tr>
                    <tr>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center" width="50">30 <input type="text" name="id[0]" value="(69)" readonly style="border:none;width:25px;"></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1"><input type="text" name="name[0]" value="Abre van Buuren" readonly style="border:none;"></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb0" name="cid[0]" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes[0]" id="30" value="Sick"></td>
            </tr>
                        <tr>
                <td class="sectiontableentry2" align="center" width="50">31 <input type="text" name="id[1]" value="(71)" readonly style="border:none;width:25px;"></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry2"><input type="text" name="name[1]" value="Berne Botha" readonly style="border:none;"></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry2" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb1" name="cid[1]" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry2" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes[1]" id="31" value="On vacation"></td>
            </tr>
                        <tr>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center" width="50">32 <input type="text" name="id[2]" value="(70)" readonly style="border:none;width:25px;"></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1"><input type="text" name="name[2]" value="Corlea van Buuren" readonly style="border:none;"></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1" width="40"><input type="checkbox" id="cb2" name="cid[2]" onclick="isChecked(this.checked);" /checked ></td>
                <td class="sectiontableentry1" align="center"><input type="text" name="notes[2]" id="32" value=""></td>
            </tr>
                        <tr>
                <td colspan="">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="sectiontablefooter" align="center" colspan=""></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="sectiontablefooter" align="center" colspan=""></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>&nbsp;</td>
                <td><input class="button" type="submit" name="submit_list" value="Submit" /></td>
            </tr>
        </table>
</form>
</body>
</html>

I don't know why all the checkboxes are checked.
You should be checking to see if they have a value in the database and only marking them as checked if the database shows a value.

mysamsung · #3 (**permalink**) 07-23-10, 06:34 AM

you have solved my problem