Checkbox checked-status based on MySQL and PHP

Question

I have a basic PHP form (a few fields and 2 checkboxes, I want to add more checkboxes later, but for now I'm just using 2 for testing) in PHP. The fields and checkboxes save to a MySQL database and it works great.

I also have an 'edit' form that mirrors the original input form except that the values for the fields are loaded from the MySQL database based on the rows ID as is pretty standard.

The problem is that, at the moment, the last field of the edit form is just another text input field. What I would like to do is change that for checkboxes that will either be checked or unchecked based on the input from the original form.

I'm thinking there is a need to use ischecked but I'm unsure if I need to change the logic for the original form, or if I need to change the database itself (I hope not!).

The database is laid out thusly:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| ID (int) | ARTICLEAUTHOR (varchar) | ARTICLEORGANIZATION (varchar) | ARTICLETAGS (varchar)|
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the code for the two forms is below.

First, the new entry form:

            // addnew.php

            

            
            . . .
                  
                    Create a new entry in the database
                    
                      
                        Article details
                      
                      
                        Article Title:
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article Author:
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article Date:
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article URL:
                        
                        
                        
                      
                    
            . . .
                      
                      

                      
                    
                    
            . . .
                    
                
              
            . . .
            
            
             0)
            {
             $articletags_string = implode(",", $articletags);
            }
             // check if the form has been submitted. If it has, start to process the form and save it to the database
             if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST')
             { 
             // get form data, making sure it is valid
             $articletitle = mysql_real_escape_string(htmlspecialchars($_POST['articletitle']));
             $articleorganization = mysql_real_escape_string(htmlspecialchars($_POST['articleorganization']));
             $articledate = mysql_real_escape_string(htmlspecialchars($_POST['articledate']));
             $articleurl = mysql_real_escape_string(htmlspecialchars($_POST['articleurl']));
             $articletags = implode(',', $_POST['articletags']);

            . . .

             mysql_query("INSERT articles SET articletitle='$articletitle', articleorganization='$articleorganization', articledate='$articledate', articleurl='$articleurl', articletags='$articletags' ")
             or die(mysql_error()); 

             // once saved, redirect to success page
             header("Location:addsuccess.php"); 
             }
             }
             else
             // if the form hasn't been submitted, display the form
             {
             renderForm('','','','');
             }
            ?>

And now the edit form:

            
            . . .
              
                
                  
                  
                    Edit Details for    
                    
                      
                        Article details
                      
                      
                        Article Title
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article Author
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article Date
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article Url:
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        Article Tags:
                        
                          
                        
                      
                      
                        
                      
                    
             . . .
                    
                    
                
              
              
            . . .
                
            
            
             0)
             {
             // query db
             $id = $_GET['id'];
             $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM articles WHERE id=$id")
             or die(mysql_error()); 
             $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

             // check that the 'id' matches up with a row in the databse
             if($row)
             {

             // get data from db
             $articletitle = $row['articletitle'];
             $articleorganization = $row['articleorganization'];
             $articledate = $row['articledate'];
             $articleurl = $row['articleurl'];
             $articletags = $row['articletags'];

             // show form
             renderForm($id, $articletitle, $articleorganization, $articledate, $articleurl, $articletags, '');
             }
            . . .
            ?>

mwotton · Accepted Answer

You would be better off having two new tables to track tags.

Your article table would lose the tags field

Tags table with the following structure:

Tags Table
-----
id (int)
tagname varchar(64)

ArticleHasTags crossmap table with the following structure

ArticleHasTags
----
article_id (int)
tag_id (int)

Then you build checkboxes based on the tags table entries. When storing an article, you are also going to add entries to the ArticleHasTags table based on the checkboxes in the entry form.

When displaying the edit form, you pull the data from both the Article table and the ArticleHasTags table, either with multiple joins or it might be easier to do a second select:

select * from ArticleHasTags where article_id = $id

(where $id is the id of the article you are editing)

You then pull all the rows from the Tags database again to show your checkboxes. As you show each checkbox you can check when the article has that tag by checking for Tag id against your retrieved ArticleHasTag results using in_array().

I can go into greater depth, however I would judge that it will be of more value to you in the long term to use these pointers and figure the details out yourself ;)

This is all very procedural, but without being patronizing, this looks like the level you're at with your existing code. Be encouraged and keep learning! You've come to the right spot.

Checkbox checked-status based on MySQL and PHP

Answers (1)

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