convert query to radio buttons for selection using PHP

Question

I am looking to auto-populate a php / html form with data as radio buttons to allow a user to choose from his own records and convert their selection into a reusable variable for another form.

I have got the login and password from database working fine and can create a session $variable with the appropriate user_id

Then I get stuck with the right query and html construct. I have look at various examples to no avail.

My table is as follows

tableid Title           Author  published   colour  user_id ref_id
==================================================================
1       how to ski      pete    2014        red 2   1
2       how to cook     jones   2015        white   4       2
3       how to drive    smith   2012        yellow  2       3
4       how to cook     jones   2015        white   4       2
5       how to drive    smith   2012        yellow  4       3

I have created the basic query to pull the data but am struggling to get this displayed as radio buttons for a single selection.

$queryOrders2="SELECT * FROM books WHERE user_id=$user_id";
$resultOrders2=mysql_query($queryOrders2);
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($resultOrders2);
print_r(mysql_fetch_assoc($resultOrders2));
$Title = $row["Title"];
$Author  = $row["Author"];
$published = $row["published"];
$colour = $row["colour"];`

Then I try to convert to radio buttons to allow for single record selection

<form action="display-selections.php" method="POST">
<input class="radio_style" id="Title" name="Title" type="radio" value="Title">
<input class="radio_style" id="Author" name="Author" type="radio" value="Author">
<input class="radio_style" id="published" name="published" type="radio" value="published">
<input class="radio_style" id="user_id" name="user_id" type="radio" value="user_id">
<input name="submitted" type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

But the code is invalid and as I am quite new to PHP and still learning. I am stumped and there are just too many examples that seem to fall short one way or another.

I have tried so many different syntax and I am struggling to get my head around how to allow user selection of data from mysql in selectable format.

Any help or nudge in the right direction would be great.

You need checkboxes, not radio inputs. I'm building a small example for you. — sodawillow, Jan 15 '15 at 17:54
well the first thing you should do is drop they **mysql_*** api as it is deprecated. before you do anything else. it is not secure.. you should look into parameterizing your queries with **mysqli_*** or **PDO** — John Ruddell, Jan 15 '15 at 17:56
It's not clear to me what you want to do. The table is nice because I can see what I'm starting with. But I don't know where to end up. Can you provide an example of what you want to appear on the page. — bloodyKnuckles, Jan 15 '15 at 20:26

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

First and foremost : DO NOT USE MYSQL_* functions, they are deprecated. Use PDO or MySQLi instead. See : Why shouldn't I use mysql_* functions in PHP?

Now, a working example :

HTML form to choose the columns you want to display :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Form example</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form action="process.php" method="post">
        Choose columns (no selection = all columns) :
        <input type="checkbox" name="title" value="1"> Title
        <input type="checkbox" name="author" value="1"> Author
        <input type="checkbox" name="published" value="1"> Published
        <input type="checkbox" name="user_id" value="1"> User ID
        <input type="submit" value="submit">
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Beginning of PHP file to process the checkboxes and build the request accordingly :

<?php

$fields = array();

foreach($_POST as $label => $value) {
    array_push($fields, "`" . $label . "`");
}

if(count($fields) > 0) {
    $field_list = implode(",", $fields);
} else {
    $field_list = "*";
}

echo $query = "SELECT " . $field_list . " FROM `table` WHERE condition";

//send query, retrieve and show data :)

?>

convert query to radio buttons for selection using PHP

1 Answers1